


The Code

by 8thCyn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: #FireBuckLeming, #FireBuckLemming, #SPNFamily, #Thisishowitshouldhavegone, #canondivergent, #fixingwhatBlemmingscrewedup, #fixingwhatBucklemingscrewedup, #guessIwaswrong, #hireCyn, #justacoincidenceofcourse, #maybeIshouldkilloffahunternamedBleming, #namedDrHessEugenie, #thoughtitwouldonlybe10chapters, Arthur Ketch history, British Men of Letters, Complete, Gen, Kendricks Academy, Men of Letters, Mick Davies death, Mick Davies history, Revenge, Season 12 Alternative Ending, Season/Series 12, StillmadaboutEileen, recconning Season 12, season 12 au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-10-25 14:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10766040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8thCyn/pseuds/8thCyn
Summary: Arthur Ketch, a legacy, and Mick Davies, most decidedly not one, first met at Kendricks Academy as schoolboy apprentices of the British Men of Letters. The Code was drilled into them from the beginning, and they learned their lessons well. But what if their adherence to The Code was not all it seemed?Last update: I found it really hard to finish after Robert Berens did such a good job with Ep 22, but I hope you all like it anyway.*I was already writing this before Season 12, Episode 21, but now I'm even more determined to finish it, and fix everything that has gone wrong with this season.**May 22 update: I'm not quite so angry anymore, after Ep 22, but I'm still going to finish this my way. Hope you like it.*inspired by the podcast "Supernatural: The Road So Far"





	1. Chapter 1

 

_The American Bunker of the British Men of Letters, Present Day_

Ketch stared down at the body for a mere moment, a split second, before looking back towards Dr. Hess. He gave her a curt nod. “I’ll have Myers take care of the cleanup,” he said. “Shall we go?”

Dr. Hess’ eyes would have pierced into his soul - if he’d still had one, that was. But she merely nodded back and headed towards the door without even glimpsing at the body. The job was done, and that was all that mattered. “Now, make sure you see to the rest, and soon,” she said. “I don’t need to tell you how we feel about loose ends.”

“No, of course not Ma’am,” he replied, following her out to the hallway.

The car was already waiting to take her back to the private airfield, where she would get back aboard the waiting Cessna. She would have been in the United States for less than two hours. No one from any government would ever know that she had even been there.

Ketch had been on flights with Dr. Hess before. He knew how she would spend her time. First she would read the latest briefing reports, making notes and occasionally “harumph”ing at something she found unsatisfactory. She would use the secure onboard message device to send scathing messages to those who had been the source of her displeasure, and demanding messages to those who needed to clean up the messes. She would sip a cup of Earl Grey - strong, with only the slightest drop of cream - as she worked.

And she would not say a word, the entire flight. She never did, even when there were others flying with her.

Ketch had once made the mistake of trying to initiate a conversation during one of these flights. He never made that mistake again.

Dr. Hess was about to step inside the car when she stopped and turned back to Ketch. “You’ve accomplished a lot here, Arthur,” she said, “despite the disaster that Davies created. But don’t, for a moment, think that I don’t know about your extracurricular activities.” She said this last bit with a distinct sneer in her voice. “I would have thought you’d have better taste, Arthur. But nevertheless, you know what needs to be done, and I hope that you are up to the task. Are you, Arthur?”

He wanted to swallow the lump in his throat before he spoke, but he couldn’t allow her to see even a moment of hesitation. “Of course, Dr. Hess,” he replied calmly. “Just burning off a little steam beforehand. She’s quite… flexible for a woman who was dead for 33 years.”

Dr. Hess rolled her eyes; her face screwed up as if she had just bitten into a lemon. “I don’t need details, Arthur. Just be done with it, before things get out of hand.”

“Of course, Doctor,” he replied. She slid into the backseat of the car, and he carefully shut the door behind her. He watched as the car pulled away, waiting until it was gone from view before he went back inside the temporary bunker.

This was one mess he intended to clean up himself.

                                                                               *    *    *

_Kendricks Academy, 1987_

Mick walked down the hallway towards his dormitory. Despite being given fresh robes and a wet cloth to wipe off the worst of the blood, he was certain that everyone who walked past knew exactly what he had done. He fully expected someone to stop suddenly, point at him and yell, “Murderer!” He would be dragged off by the police; hanged for his crime.

But nothing of the sort happened. A few older students walked by, but none of them gave him a second glance. No one seemed to notice anything at all. It was almost as if there wasn’t the body of a dead thirteen-year-old boy lying on a bloody tarp in the headmistress’ office.

He plucked out the pattern on the woodwork around the door, which slid open to let him inside. Everyone was in class; he didn’t expect to see anyone in the common room, but he saw Lydia, Dr. Hess’ secretary waiting for him.

“Hello Michael,” she said, standing up from the sofa where she had been sitting. “I expect you’ll be wanting to get cleaned up.”

He stared at her, numb and dumbfounded as she led him to the showers. She pointed to a cardboard box in the corner of the room, beside one of the sinks. “Strip off, and put all of your things in there,” she told him in the same no-nonsense tone she used on students in detention for throwing spitballs in class.

“I’m sorry?” he asked, certain he must be mishearing her.

She gave him a condescending glare. “Take off your clothes, your shoes, everything, and put them over there so that they can be disposed of. While you’re cleaning up I will bring in some new things for you.”

He still stared at her. “Aren’t you going to leave? You’re not expecting me to undress in front of you?”

She sniffed impatiently. “Do you really think it’s anything I haven’t seen before? Really Michael, after a successful exam, are you going to start disobeying orders now?”

Mick stiffened. Lydia’s foot had started tapping, ever so slightly. Slowly he started to pull off his blood-soaked trainers and socks, wishing that she would at least have the decency to look away or pretend to do something else.

“Good,” she said, “now, into the box with them. Don’t worry, we’ll replace everything.”

He tossed the shoes and socks into the box and removed the rest of his clothes, pausing when he was left in just his jockeys. “They don’t have any blood on them,” he said stupidly.

Lydia snorted derisively. “Are you going to shower with them on?” she asked.

Blushing, he stripped them off and went as quickly to the shower as he could, shutting the shower curtain behind him.

Shutting his eyes tightly so that he didn’t have to see the pink-tinged water running off his body, he let the hot water run for several minutes before he squeezed out some of the foaming soap from the canister on the shower wall and started to wash himself.

But it didn’t matter how long he stayed under that scalding hot water. He wasn’t clean. He’d never be clean again: like Lady Macbeth, every time he looked down, he would see the blood on his hands.

Eventually Mick gave up, and turned off the shower; the heat from the steam made him light-headed. He peeked through a crack in the curtain, but it appeared that he was alone. Slowly he opened the curtain and saw a towel hanging on the hook beside the stall. In the corner where the box had been was a small stool, and it on sat a fresh set of clothes, right down to an identical set of trainers - minus the blood stains. He dried off and dressed quickly, grateful that the room stayed empty.

Just as he was about to leave the bathroom the door opened, but it wasn’t Lydia. It was an older student that Mick knew only vaguely. Arthur Ketch was a legacy, from an incredibly wealthy family. The two of them couldn’t have been more different, and despite being in the same house they’d never exchanged more than a few words. Arthur was tall, dark-haired, and good-looking, but he always looked as if he had just smelled something terrible. He gave off the impression of being totally bored no matter who he was speaking to, and yet he was always top of his classes. Mick couldn’t even imagine what Arthur would think of his background.

But rather than his usual look of disgust, Arthur looked at him curiously, taking in the wet hair plastered to Mick’s head, the clean clothes and the brand new trainers on his feet. His face softened slightly, took on an almost sad appearance. “Code test today?” he asked sympathetically.

Mick’s jaw dropped. “You knew about that?” he asked.

Arthur snorted. “You think you’re the only one they’ve done this to?”

His head already hurting from stress, anguish, and anger, Mick struggled to comprehend the tone of Arthur’s voice. Arthur was the perfect Kendricks’ student, yet he sounded so harsh and bitter when he mentioned the test Mick had just been through. It didn’t make any sense. None of this day had made any sense.

Arthur turned and walked away without waiting for a response.

                                                                         *    *    *

_Two Years Earlier_

The day Mick got caught he’d been nearly half out of his mind with hunger. For a few weeks he’d been staying with a friend - or rather, hiding in his basement and sleeping in behind a pile of cardboard boxes. But three days earlier he’d been discovered and promptly disposed of like the trash his father had always claimed him to be.

He hadn’t eaten since.

The Mercedes had pulled up in front of the abandoned storefront next to the stairwell where Mick had been holed up, immediately drawing attention to itself. An older man dressed in a crisp black suit had stepped out, and the car had driven away.

Mick peeked around the corner. The man was carefully studying the boarded up window as if it were a tube map or something. Mick wondered to himself if the man were crazy, but he was obviously filthy rich, and Mick couldn’t see why would anyone leave a crazy rich guy alone in a neighborhood like the one they were in.

He started to feel woozy again, and leaned back against the wall behind him. He had to get something to eat soon. Maybe even someplace to sleep. All he wanted was to curl up under a blanket in a real bed - even a lumpy one would feel luxurious. He just wanted to close his eyes and rest - really, really rest.

Just then a group of people got off at a nearby bus stop, and started to walk towards where the man was still staring at the window. Before he knew it, he was following along with them, until he’d passed right on by.

He could feel the wallet bulging in his pocket. He was dying to check and see what was in it, but he needed to get further away first. Blocks passed as he walked, not allowing his mind to wander, focusing solely on the goal of safety. But eventually he slowed, and then he knew he couldn’t go much further. He looked around, only using his peripheral vision. If he stopped and looked around for a place to hide he ran the risk of being spotted. There was a park around the corner. He could hear children playing. If he stopped and sat down on a bench, or under a tree, he wouldn’t look out of place.  
A breeze blew by and he got a whiff of himself. Well, as long as no one got close enough to smell how badly he needed a shower no one would notice, anyway.

Mick barely made it to the park, and gratefully sank down on to a bench beside the playground. A girl was pushing her little brother on the swings, but they seemed to be the only ones there.  
His hands shaking, he pulled the wallet from his pocket. The leather was scaly and rough, but fascinating to touch. It was too bad he was going to have to toss it once he got the money out; he couldn’t risk keeping it.

“I think you have something of mine,” said a voice behind him that made him nearly jump out of his skin. He popped up from the bench; the man from whom he’d stolen the wallet was standing right behind him.

Mick was still holding the wallet in his hands - there was nothing he could do. But he had to try. He looked straight into the old man’s steel blue eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, chin jutting out in defiance.

A small smile started to spread across the man’s face, but the expression in his eyes remained indecipherable. “You honestly expect me to believe that you own a wallet made of dragon hide?”

“You’re off your rocker, Mister,” Mick said, backing away, but still clutching the wallet. All thoughts of hunger were gone; he just wanted away from this crazy old man.

But for every step that Mick took away, the old man took another one towards him. Finally, Mick turned and ran, knowing that there was no way that a man of his advanced age would be able to keep up with a not-quite twelve-year-old boy. He ran until his lungs burned in his chest, then ran some more. He ran until he got to another run-down neighborhood where he sometimes hung out, and ran into the front entrance of a decrepit apartment building where no one knew or cared if you actually belonged there. He slowed to a walk, and went down a side hallway to the door of a vacant apartment he’d stayed in occasionally.

He opened the door, and found himself face to face with the old man.

                                                                                 *    *    *

At that moment, Mick had been certain he was about to die.

Instead, the man, whom Mick soon learned was named Sir Oliver Bevell, told him a story so completely crazy that Mick felt instinctively that it had to be true. And the next thing Mick knew, he was in the backseat of that Mercedes, which stopped again outside the abandoned storefront where they had first encountered each other. Mick followed Sir Oliver out of the car to the window where again Sir Oliver simply stood and stared inside.

“A’ight, I think maybe I ought to be going now,” Mick said, starting to back away and preparing to run again.

“Don’t do that,” said Sir Oliver calmly. “It’s just about time now.”

The glass of the window started to swirl with clouds. Mick felt his stomach drop into his worn-out trainers. Sir Oliver took him by the arm and steered him toward the window. They kept walking past where he should have walked straight into the glass. The clouds whirled around his head so that he couldn’t see a thing, and then stopped.

They were no longer in the street, and they most definitely weren’t in an empty store.

They were in a marble foyer, facing a huge staircase. Sunlight streamed in from all sides, as if there were no walls at all, but he couldn’t see a single window. “Come along,” said Sir Oliver. “Dr. Hess is waiting.”

 


	2. The Code, Chapter 2

_Kendricks Academy, 1987_

The nightmares were nothing new to Arthur.

As a legacy, it would have seemed logical that he would have already known about The Code, and the test that all Kendricks students were put through, but that wasn’t how things worked. Even legacies had to go through it. Even legacies had to prove their trustworthiness, and the elders wanted to know that, put on the spot with no warning, you would remember where your loyalties lay. The nightmares had been horrible at first - more than words could describe. He hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time, more than few scattered hours in a week, for nearly a year. He had gone through the motions of classes, and social activities, but he’d felt barely human.

Over time, though, he’d learned to shove it down, to push it to the back of his brain, even if he couldn’t totally scrub it away. But he still recognized the signs. He’d seen it so many times since that day that he could spot it in another student from miles away.

He observed much more than anyone gave him credit for - and to his way of thinking, that was a good thing. He saw the ones who for all intents and purposes didn’t seem affected, and the only way he could tell they’d even been put through the test was by the change in their eyes. He saw the ones who immediately buried it down deep and never let it resurface. He saw the ones who, despite their youth, took to drinking or drugs to get by. He saw the ones for whom it could not be overcome: the ones who had a total and complete breakdown, or worse.

And then there were the ones like Davies: the ones who were completely rattled, and walked around like zombies for days, or weeks. They didn’t sleep except in short, fitful spurts, interrupted by horrific nightmares repeating over and over again the last moments of a friend’s life. After the initial shock wore off, they seemed fine, but the nightmares were the one sign that they would never be the same.

Because he was two years older, Arthur didn’t sleep in the same room of the dormitory as Davies. But he had taken to using an invisibility spell he’d found scrawled on an old note in the back of one of his textbooks, and wandering around after lights out; he didn’t sleep very much anymore. He knew if he got caught he’d be in for it, but he had no intention of getting caught.

All of this to say that several weeks after their first encounter, he’d come back from a jaunt to the kitchen and heard noises coming from one of the other bedrooms. He knew immediately what it was.

He quietly opened the door and went in. He saw Davies thrashing around in his bed, murmuring and muttering incoherently. He thought about waking him, but didn’t know if an attempt to help would be appreciated or not. He might just be humiliated and angry at having his nightmare heard.

“I had to, Tim… I didn’t have a choice…” Davies pleaded with his imaginary victim. He held his hands to his face. “So much blood,” he muttered, “how can there be so much blood?” And then, in a howl that surprisingly didn’t wake any of his roommates, “WHYYYYYYYYY?”

With that, before he could second-guess himself, Arthur murmured the incantation that broke the invisibility spell and crouched by the side of the bed. “Davies,” he whispered. “Davies, you’re having a nightmare… wake up…”

But Davies continued to roll around, saying in a low voice, “No… no… no… no… no…” over and over again.

Arthur tried one more time to wake the younger boy, but nothing happened. Finally, in frustration, he reached out and slapped Davies hard across the face.

Davies woke with a start, his hand flying to where he had been hit. “What the hell are you doing?” he snapped. “What are you even doing in this room?”

Arthur was impressed at how quickly Davies had come to, how immediately he’d been able to snap back to reality. “You were having a nightmare,” he explained. “I was on my way to the loo and I heard you. I tried to wake you up, but it wasn’t working, and you were getting really worked up…” He shrugged. “I couldn’t think of any other way to wake you up.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” he snarled, pulling himself to a sitting position.

Standing up, he stared down at Davies, his face unreadable compared to the venom on the younger boy’s. “No, you didn’t, did you?” he said, and left to go back to his own room.

 

           *    *    *

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

His irritation growing, Ketch listened to the conversation coming from the bunker. He’d known that he wasn’t exactly considered a friend by the Winchester boys, but he hadn’t expected such vitriol. He’d thought that he’d started to make some headway, at least with Dean.

He knew he shouldn’t care what they thought of him, especially given his orders from above, but… Mary.

Angrily he switched off the sound, letting it continue to record to the hard drive. He picked up his phone and started to dial her number, then stopped and threw the phone back down on the desk.

From the age of 11, when he’d been unceremoniously shipped off to Kendricks, he had never openly questioned orders. He couldn’t exactly start doing it now, but things were getting more and more complicated by the day. The plan needed to play out: it had been worked out to the smallest detail, every possibility considered and sketched out.

Except for this one.

Mary.

How do you plan for a woman coming back from the dead after 33 years? How do you even consider a person being resurrected by God’s sister? Up until recently, no one had even known God had a sister - not even the esteemed Men of Letters, British Chapter. The Winchester brothers were a known quantity - they weren’t exactly good at concealing themselves, what with ending up on national news and finding themselves on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Even after they were supposedly dead, and all of the times they actually had died, they were easy to spot. Perhaps not for the average person who still believed that vampires were afraid of garlic and Hell was a metaphor, but for the Men of Letters it was a simple task to keep up with their comings and goings.

But no one could ever have known about Mary. And now he had his orders. The plan had to change, and fast.

 

          *    *    *

_Kendricks Academy, 1987_

Arthur Ketch was getting on Mick’s nerves. Twice now he’d been woken from nightmares to find Arthur crouching by the bed, as if he were Mick’s mother. And twice he’d told him to sod off. But he still caught Arthur watching him during the day: when he was eating lunch, in the halls between classes. It was fucking creepy.

And it sure as hell didn’t improve his mood. He was trying to move on from the nightmare of the test; if he decided to leave Kendricks not only would he be back on the streets, but it was quite likely he wouldn’t even get that far before the Men of Letters had him killed to make sure he didn’t say anything to anyone. No one left the Men of Letters voluntarily, not even thirteen-year-old boys.

He wished he could go back in time and tell his younger self to stay far, far away from Sir Oliver. At first it had seemed like a dream, going from a street rat to the marble halls of Kendricks, with plenty to eat and a comfortable bed to sleep in. And once he’d started his lessons it was as if an entirely new world had opened up to him. If they’d only given them books, or lectured the students about what was really out there, he never would have believed them. But to actually see a vampire skull - decapitated, of course - and see the extra set of teeth; to see videos of some of the creatures that the Men of Letters had been able to rid the UK of… it was incredible. It was exciting to think that he would grow up to be a part of it. He loved researching spells and rituals for essays, and learning about all of the technological advances that the Men of Letters were developing. Sometimes he just sat in the library, reading lore books for hours.

The Code had been one of the very first lessons, but it was all very high-level: if you were going to be part of the Men of Letters, the Men of Letters came before anything else in your life. Tests were theoretical: what would you do if… He actually found it kind of amusing how seriously they all seemed to take it.

Until that day in Dr. Hess’ office.

He’d known right away that Timothy would never, ever pick up that knife. His friend was a small boy, gentle in nature who was only at Kendricks because he was a legacy. They’d bonded right away when Mick started at the school; like Mick, he enjoyed the research, and the stories. But he would never in a million years be able to handle a real-life situation that involved violence. It just wasn’t in his nature.

Timothy had pleaded with Mick to join with him and refuse to do the task.

_“We don’t have to do it, Mick. They can’t force us, not really.”_

_“No, of course not,” he’d answered. But Timothy was naive, in a way that Mick had never had the luxury to be. Mick knew that there were only two options: either one of them left the room alive, or neither of them would._

_“C’mon, let’s just go tell them that we won’t do it,” Timothy said, starting towards the door._

_While his friend’s back was turned, Mick quietly picked up the knife and walked swiftly to catch up. “Wait Tim, I want to talk to you about something before we go,” he said._

_Timothy turned, and his eyes widened as the knife plunged into his chest._

 

       *    *    *

_1989_

Sunday dinners with Sir Oliver and his family had become a regular occurrence. Mick would be picked up from Kendricks at 4:25 pm on the dot, and taken to Sir Oliver’s house - if you could call it that. Bloody mansion was more like it. Despite the interest Sir Oliver had always taken in him, Mick never really felt comfortable in his presence, and ever since The Test he’d been even less so, but he did his best to forget about that. Sir Oliver’s wife, Lady Caroline was very kind and always fussed over him in a way no one ever had before. Quite often when he arrived she’d bought some kind of gift for him - new clothes, a compact disc player, just things that made him feel a little bit more like everyone else. She even made sure that he had a real birthday dinner each year.

Completing Sir Oliver’s family were his daughter-in-law, Louisa, and his two granddaughters, Antonia and Victoria. Their father, Sir Oliver’s son, Peter, had been killed in a car crash five years earlier, so the girls and their mother lived in the big house, too.

Antonia was three years older than Mick, beautiful, blonde, and a bit of a snob, quite frankly. Victoria was only a year older, with blonde curls that never were quite able to be tamed, freckles across the bridge of her nose, and green eyes that warmed the soul. Mick thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. She never treated him like he didn’t belong, and even at school she was friendly, and joined him and his friends whenever she could.

Sir Oliver clearly approved of their friendship, which surprised him a bit. The older they got, the more Mick wished that Tori would see him as something other than a friend, and sometimes he thought maybe she did, but she never said anything.

One night after dinner they sat on the floor of Tori’s old nursery playing Super Mario 3. Antonia had looked in, snorted derisively and left them alone. Mick had been astonished as Tori flew through the game levels, while he struggled to get past the second one. “How did you do that?” he asked her.

She laughed, and it was like music to his ears. “I spend way too much time playing this, that’s all,” she said. “Or maybe I’m just better than you at everything.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is, innit?” he asked. “I think it’s just that controller. You put a spell on it or something. Let me use that one.”

“No way!” she said, moving it away as he leaned over to grab it from her hands.

Mick fell forwards, his face smack against her chest. Horrified, he sat up quickly, trying to keep his face from showing his embarrassment, but knowing that he was failing miserably.

Tori shook her head and laughed again. “If you wanted to touch my boob all you had to do was ask,” she said, her eyes flashing mischievously.

“I… are you… I mean…” he stuttered.

She leaned towards him, and pressed her finger to his lips to make him stop his attempts to make any sort of sense, and then leaned closer. Her lips touched his; they were soft, and full.

It shocked him back to reality, and he knew he didn’t want to waste this opportunity. He reached out and snaked an arm around her, pulling her even closer, and as her tongue slipped between his lips his last coherent thought was that she might be the one thing that would make all of this worthwhile.


	3. Chapter 3

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

Mary came back from her chupacabra hunt surprised to find Mick gone. The storage containers that had been transformed into a hidden state-of-the-art Men of Letters bunker felt oddly empty. Over the past few months she had seen various “Bletters” (as she’d taken to calling them) come and go, but Mick had been the one constant; the only one she felt fairly certain she could trust.

Or at least that was how she felt on good days.

She second-guessed her decision constantly, more than she’d ever second-guessed any decision in her life. Even her deal, the one that started everything… until she came back she’d had no idea of the consequences of that decision. She’d been so devastated, so lost in that moment, with her mother dead, her father’s dying body possessed, and John, lying in her arms, his neck snapped. The demon had taken everything from her; she had nothing left. So when he’d asked for nothing but to be allowed into her home ten years hence, she hadn’t hesitated. And she hadn’t allowed herself to consider it again, until the split-second before she died.

But it felt as if every move she’d made since coming back had been wrong. Or at least misguided. Everything was so strange. She’d died in an age of _M*A*S*H_  and _Thriller_  and Reaganomics, and she’d never even touched a computer. Now she was thrust into a world where you carried a computer in your pocket, the Berlin Wall had come down, and everyone listened to something called “hip hop.”

John was gone - again. Her babies were gone, and in their place handsome men who claimed to be her sons, even though they were now older than she was - sort of. She felt a kinship to them, a closeness of sorts, but she couldn’t wrap her head around the little boys she had left behind having grown into these men. Having grown into hunters. Nothing made sense.

So how could she possibly know if she had made the right decision, going with the Bletters? Mick had said repeatedly that Toni had gone off the reservation in her interrogation of Sam. He swore that it was never their intent; they just wanted to know more about American hunters to know how to approach them and work with them.

At first she hadn’t believed him, but the picture he painted was so hard to resist.

_“Can’t you imagine it? A world without monsters? Where there aren’t any hunters, because there’s no need for hunters. Where your boys can live normal lives, and have children of their own if that’s what they want.” He’d looked at her intently, as if he could see what she was thinking. “And Mary, with your boys being adults now I know it’s easy to forget, but the truth is that you’re still… well, you’re once again a young woman. You could start over again yourself, find someone to settle down with, have more children… have the life you always wanted, before it was stolen from you.”_

_“But that’s impossible. There’s no way to rid the entire country of monsters in decades, much less years, or months,” she’d protested._

_He smiled. “I know it sounds that way, but we have the technology, and the experience to do it.” And then he’d gone on to explain some of the technology they’d developed, and how it could be used to eradicate an entire species of monsters in mere weeks - with the right hunters to do the dirty work._

_“I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve been through,” he said to her. “But the way that you’ve handled everything - the way you’ve adapted to life in the 21st century - it’s incredible. It’s that kind of grit and determination that we need, that’s why we want you.”_

_“I’m rusty,” she protested._

_“Not in my experience,” he said, shaking his head. He held out a hand to her, which she ignored. She wasn’t ready to give him that kind of trust. He didn’t pull his hand away, nor did he look offended. He just left it there, palm upwards in an obvious gesture. “Mary, we can do this. We have done this. With the proper training you could lead our entire team of American hunters. Are you sure that’s not something you’re interested in?” _

_He paused, more taking a dramatic moment than waiting for Mary to respond, she thought. So she didn’t answer._

_“Mary, we both know how hunters end up. There is no retirement for hunters, because they don’t get to live that long. Is that how you want to live the rest of your life? Is that how you want Sam and Dean to live the rest of their lives?”_

_It was a punch to the gut. Before she’d left, she’d read John’s journal, and between Sam and Castiel they had filled in most of what had happened in the years since Sam left Stanford. Whether she recognized them as her babies or not, these were her sons, and they had both already died multiple times. They’d been brought back each time, but eventually, there would be a last time. According to Castiel, some bitch of a reaper had already made clear that the next time would be the last time._

_“I’m in,” she told him._

So then where was he? She’d been training ever since - both in the bunker’s training area, and out on hunts, trying out the technology in the field. She’d been talking to hunters, convincing them to join her, and had developed a solid team. Even Sam and - eventually - Dean had agreed to join in. They were just about ready to start implementing the overall plan, so where was Mick? How was she supposed to do this without him?

     *    *    *

_Kendricks Academy, 1989_

Tori told Mick it would be better to keep their new romance private, and let everyone - especially her grandfather and her mother - go on believing they were merely friends. So they snuck kisses when no one was around, makeout sessions happened under stairwells, or in empty classrooms late at night, or after Sunday dinners when they were supposedly playing video games. It was exciting on one hand, but on the other it was driving Mick bonkers. He wanted to be able to hold her hand in front of people, give her a kiss goodbye if he wanted, have his friends make fun of him for calling his girlfriend a stupid pet name.

But for now, he had to settle for what he could get. At least they could publicly be friends. Tori could be serious and regimented when necessary, but even amidst the horror of the Men of Letters her sense of humor and spirited nature were never fully tamed. With Tori, he could be himself, and he didn’t worry about spells, cursed objects, supernatural creatures or The Code.

“Do you ever think about getting away?” he asked her one day as they sat huddled together in a storage closet on an old blanket they left hidden in there for just such occasions. She was snuggled up against him, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her head resting on his shoulder. Her curls tickled his nose, but he didn’t care.

If it was anyone else, they would have asked what he meant. They would be shocked at the very suggestion of leaving the organization that had given him the closest thing he’d ever had to a home, but Tori wasn’t like that. Despite who her grandfather was, she understood. They never discussed the test, but she knew that the Men of Letters weren’t all they were cracked up to be.

“All the time,” she answered. “I think about running away - just you and me - off to some part of the world where they’d never find us, even if it meant living on a tropical island where we were the only ones there.”

“We could populate the place on our own,” Mick added with a cheeky grin.

“That would be okay,” she said, and leaned in for a kiss. Her hand slid between the buttons of his shirt, and he had to stop himself from letting out a groan as all of the blood in his body rushed below his waist.

He put his hand on top of hers, stopping her. “If you don’t want this to go any further, I’m going to need you to stop that,” he told her. He knew she wasn’t ready for more, and he was trying really hard to respect that, but it was getting harder all the time - pun intended.

Tori hesitated for a moment, then pulled her hand back. Even though she was a year older than Mick, she often seemed younger to him. Maybe it was the freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose; maybe it was the difference in the way they’d grown up. Even though she’d lost her father at a young age, she’d had a family, a home, wealth beyond Mick’s imagining. Somehow, despite everything that Kendricks and the Men of Letters demanded, she still seemed untouched, and a little bit naive.

“I love you,” she told him. “You know that, right? And I want to… I do… I’m just…”

“Not ready yet. I know,” Mick said. “It’s okay. I…” he stumbled over words he’d never said before, to anyone. “I love you, too.”

They stayed a little while longer in their safe spot, away from everyone, until they knew it was almost curfew. They were always careful not to be late and draw attention to themselves. Getting ready to leave, they straightened out their clothes, and Mick cautiously opened the door to the hallway. He didn’t see anyone, so he motioned for Tori to join him.

Just as she stepped out into the hall, Arthur Ketch emerged from the shadows, a sadistic grin on his face.

“Just doing some late-night studying?” he asked mockingly.

Tori took a step towards him. “What the hell are you doing down here, Arthur?” she asked, without a hint of fear. Coming from legacy families, they had known each other their entire lives, but Mick was still amazed at his gentle, kind girlfriend’s icy tone.

“I was looking for a bottle of Holy Oil for a spell,” Arthur said. “Thought it might be in storage.”

“You know very well that room hasn’t been used for storage in years,” she replied, not backing down. “Were you spying on us?”

Arthur snorted derisively. “You don’t think I have better things to do with my time?”

“No, probably not,” Tori answered.

He gave her a smug smile. “It’s none of my business if you two were shagging like fuzzy little bunnies down here. But you should be more careful. I don’t think The Old Man would be too happy to find out his saintly granddaughter was a little slut.”

Without hesitation Mick stepped forward and plowed his fist towards Arthur’s face. Arthur lifted a hand and caught the fist before it could make contact. Pain shot down Mick’s arm as Arthur squeezed, almost enough to break the bones in his hand, but he gritted his teeth and refused to make any noise that could make plain his suffering.

“Believe it or not,” Arthur said, still holding Mick’s fist, “I’m trying to help you. If I know what you’re up to, it won’t be too long before other people figure it out. And believe me, you don’t want that.” He let go, and it took everything Mick had not to cradle his injured hand in his other arm, or whimper from the agony.

“Why do you care?” Tori asked, her eyes narrowed.

“I don’t,” Arthur replied, and he turned and walked away.

    *    *    *

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

Ketch knew Mary was on edge. And she hadn’t exactly reacted well to his suggestion of how to take the edge off. He wanted to tell her the truth, but he couldn’t risk it. He’d already had to adjust the plan once, he couldn’t afford to do it again or things would almost certainly go off the rails. And after all these years of planning he’d be insane to let that happen.

“Well when is he going to be back?” she’d asked when he told her that Mick had gone back to the UK.

“I don’t know,” he told her. “There’s rather a large mess to clean up. In the meantime, at least you have me.”

She grimaced, and he gritted his teeth in irritation. “Is there something wrong?” he asked, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

“No, it’s fine,” she answered. “I’ll just wait for him to come back.”

Ketch sighed. “Mary, we don’t have time for that. We’ve come this far, we need to finish this. There’s a shapeshifter nest in Delaware. We have intel on where to find one of them. We need to capture it and get information on the others. You’ll be leaving in the morning.”

“And what if I say no?”

“Mary this is tiresome. Now go and get a good night’s sleep. Call your boys and sing them a lullaby, and be ready to leave at 0500.”

She glared at him, turned and walked away, but she was headed to her dorm. At least one thing was going right.

He watched her until he was certain she was going to stay put, and then turned and walked the other direction. He put his hand on the unmarked sensor beside a barely visible door, which opened to let him inside.

“So she’s back?”

Ketch nodded and slid into the chair on the opposite side of the desk. “And I must say, she’s rather… pissed.”

“It’s a necessary evil.”

Narrowing his eyes, he stared across the desk. He knew it was true, and at one point, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But that was before. He found feelings distracting, and he’d always worked hard to avoid them. The sooner she was gone on her next hunt, the better.

He had work to do.

 


	4. Chapter 4

_Kendricks Academy, 1990_

As Mick’s 16th birthday approached, Tori had taunted him with the present she had planned. So he’d been slightly let down when she handed him a leather-bound journal and fancy, pearl-handled pen at dinner, with all of their friends around.

They’d already made plans to meet in the storage room after dinner, so when he arrived and she was there, with the blanket already laid out, he tried hard to hide his disappointment. “Thanks again for the journal,” he told her, trying to sound cheerful.

She grinned at him. “You think that was your present?” she asked.

“It wasn’t?” he asked, shocked.

Laughing, she patted a spot on the blanket beside her, and he sat down. She leaned towards him and wrapped her arms around his neck, giving him a kiss. “Nope,” she said as she sat back up.

He waited, but she didn’t offer any explanation. “So are you going to tell me what it is?” he asked finally.

Giggling softly, she started to undo the buttons of her blouse. “Guess,” she said as she pulled it off and lay it on the shelf beside her.

Mick watched as she reached around to undo her bra and let it slip off her shoulders. After that, it all became a blur. 

    *    *    *

_Casper, Wyoming, Present Day_

“Man! With this sweet thing back, and a pretty much unlimited supply of ammunition, I feel frigging invincible!” Dean crowed as he turned the Impala out of the motel driveway. “I mean, seriously Sammy: when do you remember a hunt being such a thing of beauty?”

Sam smirked at his brother. “You mean when I saved your ass? Is that the thing of beauty you’re referring to?”

“Details, details.” Dean reached over and turned up the stereo, blasting AC/DC through the car.

Sam leaned back against his seat, closing his eyes to try and get some sleep. After so many years of being in the car with his older brother he was able to sleep through anything - even Brian Johnson screeching through “Thunderstruck.” But before he really dozed off, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He shifted in his seat, deciding to ignore it for now.

He tried - but the buzzing kept coming - about every 30 seconds or so - until he couldn’t take it anymore and pulled it out to look at it.

“Who is it?” Dean asked, casting his eyes over to Sam’s phone.

“It’s Eileen,” Sam mumbled. He wasn’t in the mood for brotherly teasing right now.

For once, Dean seemed to sense this and wisely kept his smart-ass comments to himself. “How’s she doing?” he asked. “Still in Ireland?”

Sam shook his head, then brushed back the hair that had fallen in his eyes. “No, she’s been moving around. Says this is the last she can text me until she can get a different phone.” He read the last text message and felt his shoulders tense up. “She thinks someone is after her.”

“The Brits?” Dean asked, his voice hard and brittle. He gripped the steering wheel tighter, the same grip he used when wielding the demon knife.

Sam frowned. “She doesn’t say, but I think that’s a pretty safe assumption after what happened with Daegon and that wannabe Draco Malfoy.”

“Dude, your geek is showing,” Dean said with a roll of his eyes. “Tell her to go to the safe house in Montreal.” This was one of their many code names for the Bunker, not often used, but Eileen would know what they meant.

Sam nodded as he typed back to her. While he waited for another response he took a deep breath and tapped his foot impatiently. He stared out the window at the scenery, wishing there was something more interesting to look at than trees.

Finally his phone buzzed with a text notification. “She says she’ll try, but she knows a hunter in Anchorage who might help her out.”

“Okay, good,” Dean said. They both knew that Eileen would never give away her actual intentions like that, so it was probably just a decoy to buy her time to get to the bunker. “Tell her to stay safe.”

“I will,” Sam said.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Sam surreptitiously add a _((HUGS))_ to the end of the text, and smirked to himself. But it also made him nervous. No one knew better than he did how dangerous it was for them to have relationships - not just for them, but more importantly for anyone they allowed themselves to care about. It wasn’t fair, but it was true. But at the same time _((HUGS))_ wasn’t exactly sexting, either. He just hoped that Sam kept his wits about him.

    *    *    *

_Lebanon, Kansas, The Next Day_

The bunker felt strange. Nothing was out of place. After Sam had gone to bed Dean had wandered from room to room, looking at the smallest details of every room. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. But for the last few weeks, instead of feeling that sense of relief he usually felt inside the one place he and Sam could call “home” he’d felt out of sorts and jittery. He picked up books. Checked all of the curse boxes. Went over his room with a fine tooth comb to look for anything out of place. He’d even checked for Sam’s special shampoo he kept in the file drawer marked “Witch Bodily Fluids.”

Everything seemed fine. There wasn’t any reason for his unease, but he knew that he should always trust his instincts. Something wasn’t adding up, and he didn’t like it.

Sam wandered into the kitchen with a yawn and a stretch. “Coffee?” he mumbled.

Dean nodded and tilted his head in the direction of the half-full pot on the counter, then went back to staring at the screen of his laptop. Sam stumbled over to the coffee pot and grabbed a mug from the cabinet overhead. He took a gulp of the strong black coffee he’d poured and looked back over at his brother. “Anything interesting this morning?”

It was easier to ask that than to ask all of the looming questions:

_“Have you heard from Mick?”_

_“Have you heard from Mom?”_

_“Have you heard from Cas?”_

And the worst of all:

_“Any idea what looming evil is coming after us today?”_

“No, nothing,” Dean said, without even looking up from his computer. “Ketch isn’t exactly the communicative type, so it’s probably for the best if we don’t hear from him.” He paused for a moment. “Man, I never thought I’d actually miss Mick.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Sam answered. He walked over to the fridge and pulled out a carton of egg whites and some vegetables.

Dean watched him with a bemused expression as he started to chop up the vegetables. “How are we even related?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t like to cook,” Sam shot back. “I’ve seen what you make to eat when you think no one is watching.”

Just then Dean’s text notification went off. _“In Dover DE painting shipbuilder.”_

He chuckled at his mother’s autocorrect fail. She’s adapted to technology pretty quickly, really, but she’d never get used to her phone changing what she’d typed. And autocorrect was never going to get used to hunter language.

_“Wanna try that again?”_ he typed back.

_“Ducking autocorrect,”_ she replied a moment later. At that Dean laughed loudly.

That got Sam’s attention away from where he was now making an omelette from the chopped vegetables and egg whites. “What’s so funny?”

“Mom and technology,” he said, still chuckling.

“Hey, at least she’s stopped trying to call the internet,” Sam pointed out.

_“In Dover hunting shapeshifters.”_

_“Need any help?”_ Dean wrote back.

_“All OK. I’ll see you soon."_

Dean sighed as wrote back _“Be careful”_ and put his phone down on the table. He kind of wished that she did want some help once in a while. Or even more, that she wasn’t out hunting at all. He liked Mary, the hunter, well enough. But it wasn’t what he expected when Amara brought back Mary, his mom.

“So, does this mean we actually have a day off?” Sam asked as he slid the omelette onto his plate.

“I guess,” Dean shrugged. “We have no leads on Kelly Kline, no idea where Cas is, no word from Mick or his psycho alter-ego… I say we take it at face value. Watch some Netflix, maybe have a nap later. Might as well rest up now. Shit’s gonna go down soon, no matter what we do today.”

Sam paused, a forkful of his breakfast halfway to his mouth. “Yeah, that’s probably true,” he agreed.

     *    *    *

_Kendricks Academy, 1990_

“I need to talk to you,” Tori whispered to Mick right after dinner.

“You’re talking to me right now,” he whispered back with a grin. They hadn’t had any time alone in nearly two weeks, and it had almost seemed like she’d been avoiding him, so he was just happy that whatever mood she’d been in seemed to be over.

“Not now, you idiot,” she said. She smiled, but only faintly. “10:00, downstairs, okay?”

He nodded. That gave them an hour before lights out. Plenty of time to talk and… do other things.

He was so buoyed at the thought that he was there at 9:45. Tori didn’t get there until nearly 10:10, and by that time he was barely able to restrain himself from tearing off her clothes as soon as she shut the door behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and fumbled with the bottom of her blouse as he reached up underneath.

But Tori gently pushed him back. “Not now,” she said, her eyes as serious as her tone. “We need to talk.”

Frustrated, and with a boner that threatened to tear a rip in the front of his pants, he snapped without intending to. “What do we need to talk about?”

Her lip quivered, as if she were about to cry and he felt like a sodding asshole. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. “It’s just been so long since we’ve been alone. I’ve nearly been going bonkers, I want you so bad.”

She gave him the same small smile she had earlier. “I know, and I’m sorry. It’s just… sit down, will you? I need to say this, and I need you to not interrupt me.”

As he sat down, he felt a sense of panic. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“No, no… God no, not at all,” she assured him. “It’s just…” She took a deep breath. “Mick, I’m pregnant.”

He felt as if he’d just been hit between the eyes with a lead weight. “What? Are you sure?” he asked, his voice as shaky as his legs would have been if he’d been standing up.

She nodded. “I was late, but that happens sometimes. But then I noticed that my chest was really sore - like I could barely stand to get dressed sore. And when I started getting sick, like, all the time, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I took a bus across town, to the clinic at the college, and I gave them a fake name. They checked everything, and I’m definitely pregnant.”

His mind reeling, he struggled to form a coherent thought. “I don’t understand. We’ve always been so careful. How did this happen?” He couldn’t stop himself from staring at her mid-section as he spoke.

“We haven’t always been careful,” she replied. “There’s been a few times when we… and that was all it took.”

“What are you - I mean, what are we going to do?” he asked. “I mean, have you told anyone?” He wasn’t sure what scared him more - the pregnancy, or Sir Oliver finding out.

“No, of course not!” she said. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I just…” She started to cry, and Mick grabbed hold of her and let her cry into his chest.

“We need to leave,” Mick said finally. “We need to get far away from here. As far as we can.”

“Our island?” Tori asked, sniffling back her tears.

Mick pictured himself on a sandy beach, with Tori and their baby. So far away that the Men of Letters would never be able to find them. Tentatively he reached down and touched her stomach with his fingertips. “It doesn’t seem real,” he said faintly.

“If you had to find a private place to throw up every time you ate, it’d seem real enough,” she said. “Do you really think we can get away from here?”

“It’s going to take some planning, but we have to. It’s the only way I can keep you both safe,” he said. “How far along are you?” he asked. He didn’t know much about pregnancy, but he knew they only had until she started to show. If anyone noticed a baby bump, they were sunk.

“A little over two months, the doctor said,” she told him. “We’ve probably got about another two months, I think,” she added as if she could read his thoughts. Sometimes he really thought that she could.

They sat quietly for a few minutes while he ran through ideas and plans in his head. “We need to get as much cash together as we can,” he said. “I can make us some fake passports. We should probably travel separately, at least until we’re out of the UK. Once we get wherever we’re going, I’ll find a job, and we can get a little apartment somewhere. It won’t be fancy, but I’ll look after you both: I promise.”

“That’s all I need,” she said emphatically. “I don’t need a mansion, or fancy clothes. I just want to be with you.” She went silent again for a minute. “It’s so weird: I’m actually going to be someone’s mother? I’m going to get fat, and then I have to go through labor…” she shuddered. “I’m scared, Mick.”

“I’m going to take care of you - of both of you,” he repeated stubbornly. “It’s all going to be okay.”


	5. Chapter 5

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

Mary felt as if she needed a shower after watching that last interrogation. She understood the danger the shifters presented, but in her experience not all shifters had evil intentions, so it just seemed cruel to kill them all because some of them used their abilities for nefarious reasons. Besides, Ketch’s version of questioning was just plain inhumane.

And the fact that it seemed to turn him on? Even more gross.

Her self-flagellation for the mistake she’d made with Ketch made it even worse. She was a grown woman - a widow, of sorts - and she had every right to sleep with whomever she chose, but she could have at least chosen better. She had a distinct feeling that decision was going to come back to haunt her.

Sitting down on the bed in her tiny dorm room, she pulled off her boots and placed them neatly under the bed. She wasn’t a neat and tidy person by nature, but everything here was so sterile that she felt it was dangerous to have anything out of place. 

She lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Am I doing the right thing? Something just seemed wrong about this whole thing, and the uncomfortable feeling was growing day by day. She wanted to listen to her instincts, and just leave, go back to Sam and Dean and hunt the way she’d always done. Even if that meant never having the life Mick had promised her.

_But will they let me?_

Why was she thinking that? It was just paranoid. But the thought wouldn’t leave her alone. She needed to do some investigating, figure out what it was that was setting off so many red flags.

She sat up. For once the part of her that wanted to find out what was going on was screaming just as loudly as the part of her that said it was a bad idea, and she didn’t know which voice she should listen to. For her entire life though, when the chips were down she usually went the direction that any sane person would run from, so why start doing things differently now?  
Using her foot to nudge her boots back out from under the bed, she leaned down and put them back on.

It was time to see what the Bletters were really up to.

 

    *    *    *

_Kendricks Academy, 1990_

Over the next weeks they made their plans. Tori quietly took money from her savings account, and would sneak money from her mother’s stash each weekend when she visited at home, and then hid it in a lockbox in the storage room at Kendricks. Mick was amazed when he saw how much she’d managed to sneak out. “It’s barely a drop in the bucket,” she’d told him with a shrug. “Mother will never notice.” 

Mick had quietly been working on their new identities, and almost had everything they needed. They planned to leave on a Friday night, just after Tori would be sixteen weeks into her pregnancy. Any longer than that was too much of a risk, but they wanted as much time as possible to build up their stash of funds. They would leave at 1:40 am; everyone would be asleep, and no one would be up for several hours. Tori would head for the airport to catch a flight to Rome. Mick was going to take the train to Edinburgh and catch a flight to Athens, and then take the train to Rome. From there, they’d both take a flight to New York, and then drive across the border into Canada. With the Men of Letters extinct in North America it seemed the safest place to be. 

Mick had wanted to separate until New York, but Tori insisted they’d be fine. While she waited for him, she was going to do as much as she reasonably could to alter her appearance. Cut, straighten and dye her hair, change her style of clothes. Whatever she could think of.

Time seemed to crawl by, and it was wearing on Mick, trying to seem as if everything was perfectly normal when in fact his mind was a constant whirl of activity. It was just lucky that he had a natural ability for hiding what he was really feeling. He watched Tori closely for any outward sign of the pregnancy, but she only looked like she’d gained a tiny bit of weight, and their school robes hid that well enough.

Finally they were down to the last week before their planned escape, and Tori’s optimism was rubbing off on him. They had plenty of cash - more than Mick had ever dreamed they’d start off with - and there was nothing to do but wait for the right moment to leave. Tori left on Saturday night to go to Sir Oliver’s as always, but Mick noticed that when he arrived on Sunday evening she was distant, and barely even looked at him. He started to feel panicked, but somehow she managed not to be alone with him at all until the next night, back at Kendricks, in their storage room.

As soon as he walked in he could see the guilt on her face. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Is everything all right? Is it the baby?”

“The baby’s fine,” she said in a rush. “It’s nothing like that, it’s just… Antonia saw me on Saturday night at Grandfather’s. She walked in when I was changing my clothes. I didn’t think I was showing yet, but I guess I am, because she knew right away.”

Mick thought he was going to throw up. “Oh my god…” he said slowly. “What did she… What did you…”

“I didn’t tell her it was yours,” Tori reassured him. “I tried at first to deny it, but she dragged me over to a mirror and it’s a lot more obvious than I thought. But she swore she wouldn’t say anything, and she’s my sister; she wouldn’t lie to me.”

_I’m not so sure about that,_ Mick thought, but he didn’t say anything. Tori knew Antonia better than he did. “You didn’t tell her we were leaving, did you?”

“No, I told her that I was going to talk to Mother soon, and ask her for help. That was why she agreed not to say anything to anyone. I feel so bad for lying to her.”

“I know,” Mick told her, “but it’s the only way. You know that.”

Tears swam in her beautiful green eyes. “I can’t believe I have to leave my family,” she said. “It doesn’t seem real.”

There wasn’t anything else he could say, so he just put his arms around her and let her cry. When she was calmer, he put his hand down on her stomach. “So you’re showing? Really? Can I see?” he asked.

Still sniffling a little bit, she gave him a shy smile and sat up straight. She lifted her sweater up and turned to the side. Mick’s eyes goggled, as the reality of the situation hit him. Where only a few days ago she had looked like maybe she’d been eating a bit too much dessert lately, now there was a very small, but very distinct bump. The baby. His baby. Their baby. He didn’t know whether to feel pride, or to piss his pants from fear.

“Maybe we should leave now. Tonight,” he said, as he gently stroked the bump.

“No, we need to stick to the plan,” she replied. “We need the time on Saturday where no one will be looking for us for classes, so that we can get further away. I just need to be more careful until then. I won’t let anyone see me unless I’m dressed in my school robes, or something really baggy. It’s only four more days.”

He started to protest again, but she moved closer and leaned in to kiss him before he could say anything. “It’s only four more days,” she repeated.

Ignoring his misgivings, he agreed to wait.

 

    *    *    *

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

Vomit rose in her throat as Mary saw “the package.” Mick’s body had obviously been dumped in the refrigerated compartment without any care or concern. She had seen many dead bodies in her life - some human, some formerly human - and rarely did it upset her any more. It was just a part of life as a hunter. This one hurt though, and she wasn’t even sure why. Maybe it was because he was one of the few people she’d allowed herself to trust since coming back. Unlike Ketch, he seemed to have a passion for making the world a better place, even if she didn’t agree with all of his methods. On the other hand, Ketch’s only passion seemed to be killing anything that got in his way.

But Mary didn’t shed a tear; it wasn’t in her nature. She carefully shut the lid of the compartment, and with eyes closed, took a deep breath to gather her wits and turned away.   
_I have to get the hell out of here, but there’s more to this story._

She needed to get more intel on what they were up to. She was being lied to - that much was obvious. But why was Mick dead? And why were they lying about it?

Cautiously, she slid out the door of the storage room where “the package” was being kept, and down the hallway. Before she could go back to Sam and Dean she needed to know what they were up against.

 

* * *

 

_Damn it!_

Ketch fumed, stomping around the office like a rampaging bull. _Why the hell couldn’t she keep her nose out of things for now?_ Everything was going to unravel - and quickly - if he didn’t come up with a new plan. Years, and years of work could be undone in minutes. If it was anyone else he’d dispose of them before they could cause problems, but he couldn’t… not Mary. 

It wasn’t that he’d grown attached to her, of course. Attachments were… messy. But once the plan was complete she could be a valuable asset. If she didn’t hate him too much to even consider it at that point. 

The worst part was he couldn’t tell her what was happening. He couldn’t let her know that what he was about to do was a necessary evil. He couldn’t let her know it was all for show. He needed her true, raw reaction. Even if it turned his stomach.

He walked into the room where Mary was strapped to the interrogation chair, his meat and 2 veg still aching, giving him a feeling of nausea. It had to be the blow to the family jewels causing it. It couldn’t be anything else. He wouldn’t allow it.

“You’ve made a big mistake, Mary. You should have accepted my offer.”

“Go to Hell,” she spat, her eyes full of hatred.

He smirked at her. “I think you’ve mistaken me for your sons.”

Her arm pulled back in the restraints, balled in a fist and automatically about to throw a punch, but of course she couldn’t. She cried out: no words, just a sound of pure rage and frustration.

“You should save your energy,” he told her. “You’re going to need it.” He stalked out of the room. 

Antonia waited in the hallway outside; his skin crawled just looking at her. “Excellent work,” she said, the condescension in her eyes matching the sarcasm of her tone.

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over that annoying high-pitched buzzing sound. Oh, wait, that was you…” He walked away, both of them glaring at the other with narrowed eyes. “I’m going out for a bit,” he called over his shoulder.

“Where?” Toni demanded.

“Oh Sweetheart, you’ve forgotten again: I don’t report to you,” he said snidely.

“Not yet…” she said. 

He ignored her and walked out. He wanted to stay and observe, make sure that Toni wasn’t able to do too much damage, but right now he needed to take this time while she was occupied to do what needed to be done.

He walked past his too-recognizable motorcycle, and climbed into the non-descript sedan a few parking spots away. He drove the car out of the security gates with little trouble, then went on to a plaza about ten miles away, where he got out of the BMOL vehicle he knew would have a tracking device, found another sedan, opened it and started the engine with the universal car fob he carried, and left the parking lot.

 

* * *

_Kendricks Academy, 1990_

The panic in Mick Davies’ eyes was all too evident. Davies sat at the dinner table, laughing and talking with his friends as if nothing in the world was wrong, but Arthur could see past it. And with Victoria Bevell suddenly gone from Kendricks, he was fairly certain he knew why.

After dinner he followed Davies as he ditched his friends, and eventually ended up in the storage room where Arthur knew they had been meeting up for over a year. He waited in the shadows, but Victoria didn’t show up, and at 10:30, Mick came bursting through the door, the panic in his eyes now mixed with pure rage.

Arthur stepped out into the hallway to block Davies’ way. “You don’t want to do that,” he said.

“What the fuck are you doing down here, Ketch?” Mick asked. “Why are you still following me around?” Then, “Never mind. Just get the fuck out of my way.”

But Arthur didn’t move. “You’re looking for your little girlfriend?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just get out of my way!” Mick raged.

“Look, I’m trying to keep you from getting yourself killed,” Ketch hissed. “I will help you find out what happened, but you need to trust me.”

Mick took a half-step back, surprised. “Why should I?” he asked. “And why would you want to help me?”

“Because we’re more alike than you think,” Arthur answered. “And I think we could be very useful to each other. Now will you just wait here for a bit? I’ll be able to find things out that you can’t. And I can do it without making myself look suspicious, which obviously you can’t.”

Mick didn’t say anything at first. Finally he said, “Fifteen minutes. If you’re not back here I’m going to find out where she is. And I don’t care what happens to me.”

Arthur nodded. “Go back and wait in your little cubby. I’ll be back.”

He left Davies downstairs and went to the prefects’ common room. Antonia Bevell was sitting in an armchair, reading a magazine, her long legs crossed gracefully. The nearby fire shone on her strawberry blonde hair. He couldn’t stand Antonia, but she was one sexy psychotic bitch.

He sat down in the chair beside her. “What do you want, Arthur?” she asked, sounding bored. She didn’t look up from the magazine.

“Just wondered where your sister had gotten to. She seems to have just disappeared.”

“What do you care?” she asked, looking up, one perfectly arched eyebrow raised.

“I don’t,” he said. “But I heard some of her friends wondering where she was today, and I was curious.”

Toni put down the magazine and glared at him for a moment. Then she stood up and walked to a corner of the room, knowing full well that he was going to follow her. She quickly scanned the room with her eyes, and once she was certain they were alone she spoke. “The little angel got herself knocked up,” she told him with a roll of her eyes.

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Oh? She’s never seemed the type for that,” he commented.

Toni smirked. “Why? Because she turned you down?”

He shook his head slightly and smirked back. “No, she’s not my type,” he responded. “I tend more toward the slightly more… adventurous type.”

“Ugh,” she replied. “I don’t even want to know what that means.”

“So where is she? Getting rid of it?” he asked, trying to get back to the subject at hand. The minutes were ticking by, and he didn’t want Davies going off half-cocked.

“You could say that. The idiot didn’t tell anyone when we could have done something about it. I saw her last weekend, and figured it out. She didn’t want me to say anything, but of course I couldn’t do that. She should have known better than to ask me to break the Code. I told Mother and Grandfather, and they came and questioned her about it. She was examined, and they confirmed her situation, which was obviously bad enough. But when they asked her who was responsible, she wouldn’t tell them.”

Antonia didn’t need to say anything more than that. Ketch knew exactly what the result of that kind of disobedience would be. “That’s unfortunate,” he said calmly. “Ah well, she should have known better, shouldn’t she?”

“Grandfather is beside himself, of course. But it had to be done.”

“Obviously. Well, I have studying to do. I’ll be on my way now,” he said by way of excuse.

“You don’t know who it was, do you?” Antonia called over to him as he started to leave.

“Haven’t the foggiest,” he replied, and made his way out of the common room.


	6. Chapter 6

_Hastings, Nebraska, Present Day_

Ketch unlocked the motel door, then grabbed his gun before nudging it open. “It’s me,” he called out. “No need for gunfire.” He walked inside and the door shut behind him. The room’s occupant came out from the shadows.

“Arm out.” Ketch calmly held out his arm and waited while a silver blade cut into his arm. There was no need to bother with holy water, since they had all taken a cue from the Winchesters and gotten the anti-possession charm tattooed on. Those two had to have a decent idea once in a while.

“Jesus, Ketch. I might as well be back on the streets if this is what I’m reduced to.”

Ketch gave a bored sigh as he took the offered towel and held it on the wound, taking a seat in one of the stiff, shabby armchairs in the room. “Terribly sorry that I couldn’t provide you more luxurious lodgings, but keep in mind that _you_ could be in cold storage right now, instead of that shifter.”

“I’m sure you’d like that,” Mick said drily. “Especially if it meant you could ride off into the sunset with Mary, the conquering hero rescuing the fair maiden.”

His left arm still wrapped in the towel, Ketch crossed it against his right and leaned back in the chair. He scowled at Mick, but didn’t say a word.

“Well, even for you that’s not a good look, so something has obviously happened. Is Mary all right?” Mick asked, sitting down in the other chair.

“Mary found ‘your’ body, and then she found the strategy board.”

“Damn.”

Ketch gave Mick a side-eye that would have devastated any other man. “Very helpful, Davies. I’m so glad I drove all the way out here to get your insight into the situation.”

Mick leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “What did you do with her?” he asked.

“I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I didn’t expect you would.”

Ketch sighed, for a brief moment giving him a look of humanity. “I tried to reason with her, but she attacked me. I had to subdue her, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Don’t be cute, Davies. You know how much I hate that.”

“Just get on with it, would you?”

Ketch removed the towel from his arm and inspected the wound before tossing the now-bloody towel on the table between them. Mick narrowed his eyes at it, but chose to ignore it. “Bevell showed up,” Ketch told him.

“Not…” Mick started to say.

“No, not the Old Man. Her ladyship,” he said with a derisive sneer.

Mick sat up sharply. “Well what the hell are you doing here?” he asked, sounding alarmed. “You left Mary with her? Are you completely off your rocker?”

For a brief moment Ketch looked somewhat chastised. “Mary is tough,” he said finally. “She can take it. And we needed to discuss this.”

“What is there to discuss?” Mick asked. “Get her the hell out of there!”

The air in the room was cold - Mick had the fan running on high in case anyone was somehow listening. Ketch stood up and stalked over to the window. He parted the curtains only slightly and took a look outside. The parking lot of the motel was deserted still. “We have spent over twenty-five years on this, Davies. And we have never been closer than we are now. I want to protect Mary, I do, but how do we do it without ruining everything?”

Mick exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “I wish I knew,” he replied.

 

    *    *    *

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

The door into the main area of the bunker closed with a creak and a loud slam, and Dean immediately reached for his gun. His hand clenched around the barrel, his finger tensed on the trigger. He watched the entrance, listening to the faint echo of footsteps. The footsteps stopped, his breath caught in his chest. A second later, a woman’s figure swung around the corner and through the door, her own gun at the ready, too.

In the same instant, they both exhaled their held breaths, and lowered their guns. “It’s you,” he said, then he put a finger to his lips to keep her from speaking. He motioned her to come over, then waited as she descended the stairs and crossed over to the library area. She followed him around to the side of the table where he usually sat, and crouched down when he did. He’d given her another _“sssh”_ sign, just to remind her not to say anything, then pointed under the table where a bug had been attached right near the holster he kept there for his pistol.

Eileen’s eyes widened, and he could see the panic in her eyes. He shook his head, and straightened up before sitting down at the table and pulling a notepad and pen towards himself. _“It’s ok”_ he wrote.  
She raised an eyebrow in disbelief.  _“We found it after our last hunt. They were in here, and after what you’d said about being watched we were on the alert anyway. Putting it beside my holster was a dumbass move on their parts.”_

Eileen nodded and reached out for the pen and notepad, which Dean handed to her. _“So what’s the plan?”_ she wrote, and handed it back.

Dean grinned as he wrote, _“Take the bastards out.”_

She grinned back, and motioned for the paper again. _“Sounds good,”_ she wrote. And then, _“Where’s Sam?”_

With a smirk, Dean pointed towards the kitchen. Eileen smiled and waved before heading in that direction.

 

    *    *    *

Over the next few days, Eileen gave Dean some lessons in basic sign language. Other times they spent in the bunker’s panic room making plans, or Dean and Sam made conversation near the bug, sometimes purposely being boring, sometimes dropping misinformation about their plans, and once in a while going out of their way to have conversations that would make even Ketch uncomfortable.

And once in a while, Sam and Eileen would disappear, and Dean tried not to think about it. Despite the stress of their current situation, Sam seemed to be unable to wipe the stupid grin off his face.  
He was also trying not to think about the fact that neither of them had heard a word from Mary in several days. She wasn’t even playing her turns in their _Words with Friends_ game, and no matter how busy she was, she’d always managed to at least play once a day up until then. And Cas? Cas had gone radio silent nearly two months earlier, and even though he’d been gone longer than this before, Dean was starting to lose hope this time.

Three days after Eileen arrived at the bunker Dean was up early, looking through news reports online, trying to find anything that would lead them to Kelly, or Cas, or their mother, or… anything. Frustrated with both the lack of information and his empty coffee mug, he went to the kitchen to get a refill. At least that was something he could fix.

But he stopped in his tracks to see Eileen perched on the counter, seemingly wearing nothing but one of Sam’s t-shirts, locked at the lips with his brother, her legs wrapped around his waist. He cleared his throat awkwardly, and Sam’s face spun towards him. “Oh, hi,” he said sheepishly.

Seeing Sam turn made Eileen look towards Dean, and she blushed, but held tightly to his waist with her left hand and used her right hand to wave at him.

He was about to open his mouth and begin a lecture, not about the fact that they were knocking boots, but that their timing sucked. But he stopped himself just in time. _That damned bug._ He couldn’t risk letting anyone figure out that Eileen was there. Hopefully they were off on a wild goose chase in Montreal, or Anchorage, or anywhere else that wasn’t the bunker. So since he couldn’t say what he wanted to, he gave Sam a pointed look, rolled his eyes and started to walk back out of the room. But before he did he realized that he had forgotten something and turned back around.

_“Coffee”_ he signed, and he pushed his way between his brother and Eileen to get to the coffee pot.

“Dude, really?” Sam hissed at him.

Dean ignored him long enough to pour another mugful, then turned around. “Look,” he said under his breath. “After what I’ve just witnessed I need to stay awake so I don’t have nightmares, so I need caffeine.”

“Go screw yourself,” Sam replied.

“Only way I’m seeing any action these days,” Dean muttered as he left the kitchen.

Walking back to the library, he saw one of his spare cells blinking at him. He picked it up and flicked open the old phone. He barely even used it anymore, but kept it anyway. There was a voicemail, but the call display didn’t list the caller. He dialed into the voicemail system and was surprised to hear his mother’s voice.

“Dean, call me,” she said. “We’ve got a problem.”

 

    *    *    *

_Kendricks Academy, 1990_

Mick was already on his way up the stairs two at a time when Arthur made it back downstairs. “I told you to stay put,” Arthur said.

“And I told you fifteen minutes,” Mick answered.

Arthur grabbed him by the arm before Mick could continue on his way. “Come with me,” he said.

“Where the hell is she?” Mick snarled. He tried to wrench his arm away, but his schoolmate’s grasp was too strong, and he was forced back down the stairs.

“You need to calm down - now,” Arthur told him. “Or you’re going to get both of us killed.” He shoved Mick back in the door of the storage room and shut it behind them. He stood in front of the door, lest Mick decided to make a break for it.

“Victoria is dead,” he said. He watched as, in a matter of seconds, Mick’s face went from shock, to grief, to rage. “Now listen to me, you _cannot_ go up there like a raging bull. You have no sense of logic right now, and they will kill you in an instant.”

“Who the hell cares?” Mick asked, his fingers running through his hair, yanking at it as if he wanted to yank his brain right out of his head.

“Victoria did!” Arthur answered sharply. He grabbed Mick by the shoulders and shook him. “You have to listen to me… I need you to listen to me very carefully and hear what I’m about to tell you. Can you do that?”

With a groan, Mick started backwards, about to double over in grief. Arthur grabbed hold of him again with his left hand, and then slapped him, hard, with his right. “Davies, you are going to listen to me, so get it together. You can’t afford to fall apart right now.”

Mick stared at him, stunned, but after a moment he nodded.

“She didn’t die because she was pregnant, although I wouldn’t put that past them,” he started.

“You knew that?” Mick asked in a hollow voice.

“I didn’t, but I do now. That’s not the point, though. She didn’t die because of that; she died because she was protecting you.”

“What?”

Arthur sighed, growing impatient with Davies’ thick-headedness. “She was interrogated about who was responsible for soiling the purity of a legacy and leaving her royal womb filled with common spawn.”

Mick’s eyes widened, and he drew his arm back to throw a punch.

“All right, all right,” Arthur said, putting an arm up to block. “You’re missing the point, here: she died because she wouldn’t give them your name. She was protecting you. So do you think she’d want you to go off half-cocked and get yourself killed in some bull-headed attempt at revenge that won’t do a damned thing?”

Mick was silent.

“Or,” Arthur added, “do you think she’d rather you go at this logically, and take them down, piece by piece?”

“What are you talking about?” Mick asked dully.

“I have someone I want you to meet.”

 

* * *

More than anything in the world, Mick wanted to die. With Tori - and their baby - gone, he had nothing left. He had no family, no home, nothing. And he would never be able to leave the organization that was responsible for it all. Not alive, anyway.

Numbly, he followed Arthur Ketch through corridors, paying no attention to where he was going. Arthur used a spell to open a door that wasn’t even visible when they first arrived in front of it, and Mick followed him through the door, and down a set of stone steps that looked as if they were heading for a dungeon. And he still didn’t care.

Finally they stopped in front of a row of metal filing cabinets that filled a large portion of the wall. Arthur walked over to one of the drawers and began fiddling with the combination lock attached to it. He stood back beside Mick, and a bright light enveloped them.

Mick was still seeing spots in front of his eyes when he heard Arthur’s voice say, “Mick Davies, I want you to meet Peter Durbin. He’s going to help us to take down the Men of Letters once and for all.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

“Damn it, Mom, answer!” Dean muttered after calling Mary’s cell for the fifth time in a row. In the past twenty-four hours since he’d received her voice mail, he’d sent dozens of texts and emails, and had probably called her phone a hundred times. He poked his finger at the “end call” icon so hard he was lucky he didn’t crack the glass.

There were times when he actually missed landlines that he could slam down into the receiver to vent his frustrations. Instead he shoved over a chair, which went skidding across the tile floor.

The fact that Sam didn’t make a sarcastic comment about abusing the furniture showed just how serious a situation it really was. Between the bug in the bunker, Eileen’s assertion that the Brits were after her, and now the panicky message, things did not look good. His brow furrowed, he sat in a nearby chair with his elbows resting on his knees. He looked down at the floor as he spoke. “What are we going to do?” he asked.

Dean knew his little brother was depending on him to have a brilliant idea. He went over to the speakers he had hooked up to Sam’s iPod and turned on some insipid indie pop crap. He couldn’t stand it, but knowing that Ketch and the Brits would have to listen to it made it oh-so worth it. He turned the volume up as far as it would go, then motioned for Sam to follow him out of the room.  
“We can’t afford to wait on this anymore. Not now. We already lost her once, we’re not losing her again.”

Staring at the floor, Sam waited for Dean to continue.

“After we got you away from those bastards back when all of this first started, you told me the one thing that Lady Pain-in-the-Ass kept saying to you was that American hunters were disorganized, and just went in guns blazing without a plan, right?”

“Yeah,” Sam mumbled. He didn’t seem like himself, but Dean didn’t have time to wonder what was up with him.

“So we’re going to organize. We’re going to get every hunter we’ve ever worked with, or heard of, and we’re going to get them all together - fast.” He grinned. “And then we’re still going to go in, guns blazing, and show them how it’s done.”

    *    *    *

_Kendricks Academy, 1990_

Mick stared at the man Arthur Ketch had just introduced him to, his face contorted between scowling and crying. “What the fuck are you on about?” he asked, his voice shaking.

Peter smiled kindly at him. “Sit down, Michael. You’ve had a hard night.”

Mick’s head whipped around to face Arthur. “How does he know about Tori? Did you stop here to talk to him, instead of coming directly to me?” His hands balled into fists, and he tensed to take a swing.

Peter put a hand out to stop him. It was gentle, but a firm indication that he wasn’t about to permit violence. “Arthur didn’t tell me anything that I didn’t already know, Michael. Just sit down, please?”

It wasn’t so much that Mick sat down, but that his legs simply gave out underneath him, and he fell into the waiting chair. “What’s going on here?” he asked feebly. He felt as if his entire life force had drained from his body.

Peter sat down in the chair opposite him; Arthur stood off to the side, watching.

“My father’s name was Edward Durbin II. He was part of the American branch of the Men of Letters, until he was sent overseas as part of a small delegation in 1939 to assist the British branch during World War II. The rest left and went back to America after the war, but my father had met my mother by that time, and she wanted to stay in Britain. So when I turned eleven, I was sent to Kendricks as befits a legacy.”

“Whether you want it or not, as a legacy you have no choice in the matter,” Arthur muttered from his corner.

Peter gave him a sad smile. “No, you don’t. But you see by this time the American branch had eased up in its interpretation of the Code. My father had no idea what was expected of students at Kendricks. He was furious when he found out, but by then it was too late - for me, and for my sister, Moira. Both of us were too scared and traumatized to say anything for many years afterwards. He would have taken us and gone back to America, but the American Men of Letters had been entirely wiped out by then. There was nothing to go back to. And as you know, you can’t just leave the Men of Letters. So we stayed. From that day on though, he made it his mission to take down the leadership of the Men of Letters, and make it into what it should always have been: an organization dedicated to _helping_ the world, not controlling it.”

“He did a piss poor job,” Mick said, his voice hoarse, brittle, and bitter. He swiped at a stray tear that had started to roll down his face.

If he’d expected to get a rise out of Peter by insulting his father, he would have been disappointed. “He tried, Michael, he did. But he had no Americans to call on as allies, and those inside the organization here were already so indoctrinated that, well, it was never destined to work. He knew it would take a remarkable amount of patience. He needed to get allies when they were still young enough to have their opinions reshaped, to understand just how wrong what they were being asked to do was. He passed away when I was barely an adult. He’d been older when my sister and I were born. I knew I needed to take up where he left off. There aren’t many of us, but we are very dedicated, and we will win.”

“I knew when I first saw you, after your test, that you would be an ideal addition,” Arthur said, “but the timing was never right to talk to you about it. Now though…”

“You want revenge,” Peter finished. “The question is, are you going to have the patience to work with us, and get true revenge for Victoria’s death, or are you going to rush in, get yourself killed, and accomplish nothing but adding another name to the list of Men of Letters’ victims?”

Mick felt his soul harden as he thought about Tori, and the baby. He saw her beautiful smile, the way the freckles had been scattered across her nose. He could still feel the touch of her skin against his fingertips. How long would it be until that all started to disappear from his memory? He had to keep their memories alive, and he had to make them count for something. As much as he hated to admit it, Arthur was right: it was what Tori would want.

_Damn it, why didn’t we leave sooner? It should never have come to this._

Looking down at the stone-tiled floor, he asked, “What do I have to do?”

    *    *    *

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

Sam and Dean sat at the table, talking very seriously, and trying to keep straight faces. “So when are we meeting Tamara at the warehouse?” Sam asked.

Dean couldn’t contain his grin, but he kept his voice as heavy as lead. “She wants us to meet her outside, at 9:00 tonight. She’s sure this is where the Djinn is and but she doesn’t want to go in alone.”  
They’d already casually dropped the address of an abandoned warehouse which most definitely was _not_ the home of a Djinn. But it was familiar enough that there was no way the Brits would be able to hide anywhere that Sam and Dean couldn’t find them - and take them out. It wouldn’t be all of them - the Brits weren’t stupid enough for that, but it would be a start.

Their “plans” communicated via the under-table bug, they went out to the kitchen and started making dinner. Eileen had convinced them that if they were going on a death mission they should at least have a decent meal first, so earlier Sam had gone to the grocery store with a list of ingredients Dean had insisted they needed. Over the years that they had called the bunker home he had really developed his cooking skills. Not that he didn’t still leave leftovers in the fridge until they could be used as a fifth-grade science experiment, but at least he occasionally ate something other than bacon cheeseburgers and pie.

“Just not salad,” Dean explained to Eileen. “That’s never going to happen.”

During dinner, they played the music loudly, and mainly conducted their conversations via sign language. Dean told Eileen more stories about Sam’s geeky childhood, all of which she loved, even as Sam’s face went more and more crimson. Sam told her about the time Dean - in his demon days - had chased Sam around the bunker trying to kill him before Sam could cure him. _“Glad that worked out the way it did,”_ Eileen told them with a grin.

It was nice to have someone around with whom they could share these stories, and who didn’t seem the least flustered by any of it. Dean knew that Sam had confided to her about being Lucifer’s vessel, and jumping into the cage to stop the Apocalypse, and that was something he’d never really talked to anyone about since Charlie.

Dean just hoped that by the time this mission was over they’d still all be around to continue the storytelling.

They dumped all of the dirty dishes into the kitchen sink, and for once Sam didn’t complain about it. He didn’t say anything, but in his head he thought about the people who would find the bunker later, if it ended up abandoned for another fifty years, and what state those dishes would be in by then.

The three of them did a thorough check of their weapons, then wordlessly climbed into the Impala. Dean drove on side roads, without his usual loud music. Not even _Blaze of Glory_ , which Sam knew was Dean’s own version of the _Mission: Impossible_ theme song. It would have been slightly comforting to have it playing, but he didn’t question it.

They pulled into an abandoned farm yard, where Jody and Donna waited with a group of hunters. Dean had outright refused to allow Claire to come along; that was one thing he could still do for Cas, even if Cas had disappeared again.

The trees overhead nearly blocked out the bright moonlight as the group came together and discussed the plan. Sam and Dean were going to do the bulk of the work for tonight; the others were mainly there as backup if things started to go awry. The main target was still to come, and a big attack would give too much away far too soon.

Jody gave them both tight hugs before they left. “You be careful, you hear me?” she said. Her voice caught in her throat for just a moment. “The world needs the Winchester boys, so don’t screw this up.”

“Piece of cake,” Dean said, with slightly less than his usual bravado.

Sam nodded his head towards the car. “C’mon, let’s go,” he said.

Eileen grabbed hold of his hand for a moment, he gave her a quick kiss, and then she climbed into Jody’s truck. The boys gave everyone a wave, and took off down the long dirt driveway. The others followed behind them at short intervals.

At 8:57 exactly they pulled up in front of the warehouse. A minute later, Tamara and her new partner Dudley joined them. Dudley was nerdier looking than even Garth had ever been, skinny and gangly, but he was also lightning fast and deceptively strong. He also had a sharp wit and was genuinely kind-hearted. He was good for Tamara on both a professional and a personal level.

But right now they were both all business. They signaled their readiness, and the four of them moved in.

    *    *    *

Dean skidded into the passenger seat of the Impala as Sam shoved their bound and hooded hostage into the backseat and climbed in beside her. Donna floored the gas pedal and they squealed out of the parking lot just as one of the few remaining Brits half-heartedly began to fire in their direction. Not a single bullet hit Baby - the shooter was so badly injured that his aim was that of a blind Cupid.

A text notification went off, and Dean was relieved to see it was from Tamara, letting him know that she and Dudley were both fine. No one was about to say anything in front of their guest, but it hadn’t escaped Dean’s notice that it was far too easy to get in, grab their hostage, and get out. Granted, they had left a pile of casualties behind them, but he doubted that the Brits would consider them anything other than red shirts.

“Not much by way of scenery around here, is there?” called a muffled voice from the back seat.

“Shut up,” Dean snarled.

“Quite the conversationalist, aren’t you Dean?” the voice asked.

“Sam, just punch her, would you?” he called to the backseat in an exasperated tone.

“Dean…” Sam said, in his we can’t do that kind of tone that always drove Dean nuts.

Donna took one hand from the wheel and pointed at her purse, which was sitting at Dean’s feet. “There’s a syringe in there. Should knock her out for a while.”

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t ask why she was carrying around a sedative. Fishing out the syringe, he handed it back to Sam who injected it into their captive’s arm with a grim look.

“I really don’t think that was necessary,” she said from under the hood.

“I do,” Dean said firmly.

She chattered away for a few minutes more before her words slowly started to slur. It was a good ten minutes before her head began to slump, and another five before she was totally out. By that time they were only another fifteen minutes from the bunker, but it was the most peaceful fifteen minutes they’d had all day.


	8. Chapter 8

_London, UK, 2008_

“They actually did it!” 

“Who did what?” Arthur asked, already bored with the conversation.

“The Winchesters. They’ve killed Azazel.” Toni’s disbelief was obvious. She moved her laptop computer to the side table and stood up, walking over to the window. “I honestly thought once the father died they would have given up. The younger one has always wanted out; I was surprised that they were able to rope him back in.”

She paused in thought for a moment, then glided over to the desk chair where she had left her carefully folded clothes. Arthur watched her from the bed as she started to dress: she really did have a stunning body. It was too bad that she was such a sociopathic pain in the ass. Still, seducing Antonia Bevell for intel wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever had to do. Not by a long shot.

“Well, they had to do something right eventually,” he said. “No doubt they’ll find some new way to screw up sooner rather than later.”

He was in the middle of thinking what a shame it was to cover up those perfect breasts with her bra as she looked over at him again. “Are you just going to lie there all day?” she asked, raising a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at him.

“I thought I might. What else have I got to do?” he asked.

Toni rolled her eyes at him. “Honestly, how have you gotten to the level that you have? Do you have any ambition at all?”

Arthur chuckled to himself. “I have my ambitions,” he said. “I just don’t let them get in the way of pleasure.”

“Well I have a meeting with Hess shortly. I haven’t time to wait for you. David will be home tonight, so for goodness sake don’t leave anything behind when you go,” she said.

“Ah yes, the husband. Wouldn’t want to leave any evidence behind. Could be dangerous,” he replied with a snide grin. 

Toni had gotten married six months earlier, but it hadn’t put much of a dent in their extracurricular activities. They’d been sleeping together on and off for years - since not long after her sister had disappeared from Kendricks. She would claim to be tired of him, or get angry and kick him out of her bed, but he always managed to find his way back. It was the best way he’d found to get her to let down her guard, at least for a little while. And a rather enjoyable one at that.

“What time is your meeting with Hess?” he asked.

“Three o’clock,” she answered, picking her skirt up off the chair and straightening it.

“It’s only one o’clock now,” he pointed out.

“I don’t like to be late.” But she had stopped dressing.

“I’m well aware, but you still have plenty of time. You don’t want to get there so early that it looks like you have nothing better to do, do you?”

Her lips parted, ever so slightly, and he knew he’d won. “How do you suggest I fill the time?” she asked, as she placed the skirt back on the chair.

A slow, arrogant smile spread across his face. “I have several very… unique ideas,” he said. “Why don’t you come over here and we can discuss them in greater detail?”

“I think that can be arranged,” she said, and slid back on to the bed.

 

    *    *    *

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

Dean looked up as Sam walked into the kitchen. “Is she awake yet?” he asked.

Sam shook his head. “Whatever was in that thing Donna gave us must have been enough to knock out an elephant. Jody’s staying down there to keep an eye on her. She’ll let us know when she wakes up.”

The music was already blaring through the whole bunker again, this time some screetchy old country song Dean had heard a thousand times in various seedy bars, but had never cared enough to inquire about its name. It wasn’t easy to carry on conversations. The rest of the hunters were stashed in the various bedrooms of the bunker - they’d never had so much company before - with strict instructions about communication. Most of them had resorted to carrying around notepads and pens.

“We don’t have much more time to wait for her to wake up. We can’t risk the Brits thinking something is going on and deciding it’s not worth it to keep Mom around.”

Sam winced. “She’s fine. She’ll be fine,” he insisted.

“I get it,” Dean said, “but we still can’t risk it. I’m not sure it’s worth waiting around to try and get info out of the Grand Duchess of Bitch in there. Look, you’ve already seen the place, and we know that they don’t know shit about a real fight. They’re a bunch of librarians who got hold of some kick-ass technology and have never really had to use any of it.”

Sam leaned against the kitchen counter, closed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair. The screetchy country song had turned into a languid, sobfest of a ballad, complete with intervals of sobbing. “I know you’re right, but this isn’t just about us, or Mom. We’ve got a lot of people here depending on us to come up with the best plan to destroy the Brits, but still bring them home to their families.”

Dean stared at Sam intently as he spoke. “And they know what they’re getting into. They know that we either do this and risk a few casualties, or one by one we all die at the hands of these British slimeballs.”

At that moment, Jody peeked around the kitchen doorway. “She’s waking up,” she said, and disappeared. They could hear her walking back towards the dungeon. Sam and Dean looked at each other for a moment, and then followed.

Lady Bevell was groaning softly, and trying to pull her arms free from the restraints, likely in an attempt to rub the sleep out of her eyes. She grunted in frustration and slowly opened her eyes, blinking furiously.

“How are you feeling?” Dean asked sarcastically. “Can we get you something? Water? Stale bread? A blowtorch to warm your feet?”

There was a pause, another low moan, and then she forced her eyes open and glared at them. “How about some eggs benedict and a mimosa?” she asked. Her words were slightly slurred, but she still managed to convey her condescension.

Behind Dean, Sam paced slowly back and forth, palming a machete. Toni barely glanced at him. She was fully alert now, and her eyes looked unflinchingly at Dean.

“Can we please get this over with?” she asked, as if she were asking about an unwanted math test. “You ask me for information on our bunker. I tell you no. You threaten me, I give you a wonderfully witty comeback, the essence of which is ‘not a chance.’ You storm off, because you can’t actually bring yourself to torture a human being, or maybe you just kill me. Either way, you won’t get the information you want, so why waste everyone’s time?”

“How is it you’ve only been awake for two minutes and I already want to shoot you full of more of whatever was in that syringe?” Dean asked, his frustration building.

Sam stopped pacing and put a hand on Dean’s arm. “Maybe we should just forget this. Like we were saying before, we can do this on our own.”

Dean didn’t respond as he continued to stare down their captive. She stared right back, with a sly smile that said she was actually enjoying it. “Fine, leave her here. We’ll deal with her later. Let’s go.”

“You’re not serious,” she said, in obvious dismay as they started out the door and flicked off the lights.

“Deadly,” Dean replied.

“You’re going to leave me here alone in the dark? Tied up like this? What if I need to use the ladies’ room?”

“Hold it.”

"I don't remember you being too concerned with me having to pee when you had me tied up for days," Sam added.

“All right!” she called out. “I’ll answer one question in exchange for a trip to the loo.”

“Forget it,” Dean snarled.

Jody put a hand on his arm. “Donna and I will take her while you think of what you want to ask.”

“She’s never going to give us anything worth it, so let’s just go,” he said, but his tone had softened somewhat.

“And here I thought you might like to know about your friend, Mick,” Lady Toni called, with a sneer over the word “friend.”

Gritting his teeth, Dean faced Jody and hissed, “Fine, take her. But she makes even the slightest move…”

“And we’ll kick her ass,” Jody finished. “Do you really have any doubt of that?”

“No.” He turned back around, eyes narrowed, fists slightly clenched. “Info first, then potty break.”

They stared each other down: Dean’s eyes full of fury, Toni’s still had an air of boredom, as if she didn’t believe she was in any real peril. It only served to infuriate him even more. He started towards her, the demon knife in hand. Her head tilted a little, but her expression didn’t change. He stopped in front of her, and scraped the knife across her cheek, leaving only a scratch, but it was enough to make her flinch ever so slightly.

“I think you’re going to tell me now,” he said, slowly drawing the knife across her other cheek.

She continued to stare at him for a moment longer, then said with apparent delight: “Mick is dead. Your mother’s lover killed him.”

Sam’s head snapped to attention. “What are you talking about?” Dean growled.

“Oh, you mean you didn’t know that Mommy was doing naughty things with Mr. Ketch?” Her eyes sparkled at the revelation. “I hear she’s quite a tiger in the bedroom.”

Jody had to grab Dean and hold him back. Sam stood, stunned, behind them, but eventually helped Jody pull his brother back from the edge.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Sam said to him. “This isn’t worth it.”

Grudgingly, Dean followed Sam out of the room, leaving Jody in charge. They went and found Donna and Sam asked her to go help Jody with the promised bathroom break, despite Dean’s protests.

“Let’s go get everyone else together,” Sam said, trying to distract him. 

They gathered the group of hunters and headed for the library. Dudley had managed to reset the bug so that it played snippets of conversations from different old movies and TV shows on a loop, and no longer recorded anything at all from the bunker, so now it was safe to conduct their last-second strategy meeting there.

The moment that Dean stepped out of the kitchen and into the library, he reached for his gun and fired off a shot.

Ketch brushed off the dust that had flown from the cement block where the bullet had hit. “Dean, we need to talk,” he said.

Dean fired off another shot which narrowly missed Ketch as he dove out of the way. He was about to fire again when two other men walked out onto the balcony. One was older, balding, but with a look of quiet dignity. The other hung back a bit, and they couldn’t see his face.

“What the hell?” Sam asked from behind him.

“Why don’t you let us come downstairs, and we can explain?” Ketch suggested, sounding irritated. Then again, that was pretty much how he always sounded, so it was hard to tell if he ever felt differently.

“Why would we have any interest in hearing you explain anything?” Dean asked. “You’ve done nothing but lie to us.”

Mick stepped out from behind the older man. Shocked, Dean’s tense grip on his gun relaxed slightly from shock. “You’re dead,” he said, feeling stupid as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Nothing should shock him anymore.

“The reports of my death are…” 

“Greatly exaggerated. Yeah, so I see,” Dean snapped. “Look, we don’t have time for this, so if you’re going to explain, explain, but your explanation had better include what the hell you’ve done with our mother.”

Sam motioned for a few of the hunters gathered behind them to go and escort the three men down to the library at gunpoint. None of the Brits protested, or tried any maneuvers to escape. They calmly sat down in the chairs and waited.

“My patience is running very thin right now, so start talking,” Dean demanded.

The older man nodded, and gave a small smile. “Sam, Dean… we’ve been waiting for this moment for a _very_ long time,” he said.


	9. Chapter 9

_Men of Letters, London Chapter House, 2012_

Dr. Hess stared around the room like the evil overlord that she was. Everyone in the room sat at attention under her intense gaze, except for Ketch, who leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. He could see a few tiny stains that he knew to be blood which hadn’t been cleaned up properly at some point, and wondered how long it had been there. Was it human? Animal? Monster? All of the above?

“Am I boring you, Arthur?” Dr. Hess asked, peering down at him. The only indication of the level of her irritation was a slight flare of her overly-large nostrils.

He gave her a charming smile. “Of course not, dear doctor. I was simply enjoying the sound of your melodious voice, and concentrating on your words.”

She scowled. “Don’t be smart, Arthur. That’s never been your forte.” 

On the other side of the table, Toni barely repressed a smirk.

“Yes, of course Dr. Hess,” he said, with an acquiescent nod, and sat up a little straighter, but still not as straight as the others in the room.

“Now, as I was saying: Davies, I believe you have an update on the American situation?”

Mick looked down to consult the reports in front of him. “It would appear that the Leviathan situation is growing worse. Although several ways to subdue individual creatures have been discovered, the Americans have not yet found a definitive way to kill them. We are estimating that there are approximately 700 Leviathans across the continental United States, but given their ability to take on not only the shape of their victims, but to take on the thoughts and knowledge of them, it is extremely difficult to pin down a realistic population number. We are confident, though, that they have not yet left the United States.”

Hess’ eyes narrowed as she pursed her lips, making the wrinkles around the corners of her mouth even more prevalent. “Confident? You are ‘confident’? And what exactly does that mean? ‘We’re pretty sure that the black goo monsters from Purgatory aren’t going to come and eat us for breakfast, but they still might’?” She said this last part in a squeaky voice that Ketch assumed was her attempt to sound like a little girl. It was, in reality, just creepy.

“The Winchesters are very close to…”

“The Winchesters!” snapped Hess. “I am so sick of hearing about those _Winchesters_. They are far more trouble than they are worth. It seems absolutely impossible that they are any relation at all to the long line of Winchesters who were actually of value to the Men of Letters.”

The room went deathly silent. Mick straightened his papers and cleared his throat. Only Ketch could see how hard it was for him to hold in his anger. He had come to appreciate Mick’s acting abilities over the years.

“Our border security is keeping a close eye on the location of the Leviathan who has taken on the person of Richard Roman, as he is their leader. He has not yet left the United States at any time since they were let out of Purgatory. His highest aides have also stayed with him. We are very close to developing a technique to detect them at our borders, but their activity has been concentrated on the United States. It is unlikely that they would bother leaving there before they have completed their plans for the Americans. We are, of course, also watching for any suspicious deaths or disappearance in the United Kingdom that would in any way indicate that the Leviathan have infiltrated our border, and sending out teams to investigate immediately. These investigations have not turned up anything of note.”

Hess nodded slowly. “Well, that’s something. Keep on top of this, Davies. They can eat whomever they like over there, but they will _not_ enter the UK. Am I making myself clear?”

“Of course, Dr. Hess,” Mick replied.

She looked around the room again. “Dismissed,” she said finally, and everyone scurried to gather their things and leave as quickly as they could.

Ketch approached Toni once they were back out in the hallway. “So, David is still in Yorkshire investigating that influx of ghost sickness?” he asked her with a sly smile.

She scowled at him. “Yes, why do you ask?”

He put a hand on the small of her back, then let it not-so-subtly slide down to her behind. “It’s been a while since you invited me over for a visit,” he murmured.

She shoved his hand away. “And it won’t be happening again,” she told him. 

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked. “It certainly didn’t seem so the last time, what with all of the positive affirmations you were giving me.”

Toni didn’t even bother to give him a sarcastic retort. She looked as if she wanted him far away as quickly as possible. “It isn’t appropriate anymore, and that’s all there is to it. Now please go away before I hang you in the dungeon by your bits and bobs.”

“Ooh… sounds kinky,” he replied snidely. “I think I might enjoy that.”

“You probably would, you psychotic yeti, but that’s beside the point. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment to keep.” She started to walk away.

Suddenly things started to come together in his head, and he stared at her. “We need to talk… _now_ ,” he said, and in two long strides he had caught up to her and took her by the elbow to lead her into another corridor and into an empty office. He shut the door.

“I get the distinct impression that there is something you aren’t telling me. And although normally I wouldn’t care, I suspect it’s something to do with me, and I _always_ want to hear more about me,” he said, raising an eyebrow. He hadn’t let go of his grip on her.

She didn’t answer him right away, but did dislodge her elbow from his fingers. Ketch could see that she was weighing whether it was worse to tell him or to deal with him hounding her. So he waited. He had nowhere to be.

Finally she pursed her lips for a moment and then spoke. “We can’t have these… interludes anymore. It has to stop. It’s best for… everyone involved.”

“Everyone?” he repeated. “Everyone meaning…”

“Oh hell,” she snapped. “I’m having a baby, and I won’t have anyone casting aspersions on my child’s lineage. So it’s done.” 

She started for the door, but he took a step back and blocked it. “Oh no, this conversation isn’t finished,” he said. “Whether we ever have an _interlude_ again or not, it’s really too little, too late, isn’t it? Your husband,” he said the word with a sneer, “has been traveling an awful lot in the past few months, hasn’t he? I would hazard to guess that I’ve spent far more time in your bed than he has.”

From the look on her face, he was fairly certain she wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in his head if she had a pistol handy. “Whatever you are implying, this is the last that I have to say on the subject: my _husband_ and I are having a baby. Anything that may have happened in the past will now stay in the past, and has absolutely no bearing on the future.”

He looked her straight in the eye. “You keep telling yourself that, Darling. And perhaps eventually you’ll start to believe it.”

For just a moment her perfect facade started to crumble, but then she simply pushed his way past him, and left the room.

    *    *    *

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

Most of the other hunters had grudgingly scattered, allowing Sam and Dean to talk to the Brits. Only Eileen remained, along with the three hunters who continued to guard the men at gunpoint.

“You’ve been waiting for _what_ for a long time? And who _are_ you?” Sam asked, looking straight at the older man. Every time his eyes fell on Mick he shuddered, so he was doing his best to avoid it. Dean sat beside him, his unreadable expression carved in granite.

“My apologies for not introducing myself earlier, but being threatened with gunfire tends to make one forget the usual pleasantries, don’t you agree?” When neither of the Winchesters replied, he continued. “My name is Peter Durbin, and I was a part of the British chapter of the Men of Letters until my unfortunate demise several years ago.”

Sam, Dean, and Eileen all startled when they heard the man’s name, and looked at each other in confusion. “I’m sorry, did you say ‘Durbin’”? Sam asked.

“Yes, why?” Durbin asked in reply. His calm expression had changed, and he looked confused.

“You’re - you were…” Eileen corrected herself, “one of the Men of Letters?”

“Yes.”

When Eileen didn’t say anything further, Sam started to speak. “Eileen’s gr…” but Eileen put a hand on his arm to stop him, and shook her head. “Him first,” she whispered. Sam nodded.

“Shall I continue?” Durbin asked. When no one responded he went on. “As you’ve no doubt seen over the past months, the leadership of the British chapter has been corrupted, badly. The organization’s goal was to collect knowledge, and assist in its usage to protect humanity from supernatural threats. But somewhere along the line, it became less about protection, and more about power and control. They have done despicable, inhumane things. My father was part of the American branch, and was sent overseas as part of a delegation to the UK. He knew what the Men of Letters should be, and - without going into too much personal detail - he was eventually awakened to the horrors of the British chapter. But the leadership is strong, and powerful, and goes very, very deep. They became suspicious of me, which is why I faked my own death twelve years ago. I have spent my entire adult life working to bring them down, and as part of that, I recruited Arthur and Michael, and a few trusted others, to help.”

Sam, Dean, and Eileen all looked at each other, stunned. Sam turned to Mick. “You’ve been… working against them?” he stammered.

“ _You’ve_ been working against them?” Dean said to Ketch, looking skeptical.

Ketch crossed his arms across his chest, with the same bored expression he wore most of the time. “You needn’t look so surprised.”

“Why didn’t you tell us before now?” Sam asked.

“Do you really need to ask that question?” asked Ketch condescendingly.

“What my friend here means to say is that we’ve been working towards this for a very, very long time. For me, since I was sixteen years old, and that wasn’t exactly yesterday,” Mick added. “Every minute detail of every action has been planned out - and replanned when necessary.” Seeing the looks on the boys’ faces, he continued. “We needed to know that we could trust you, depend on you. I don’t honestly think you have any idea how long they’ve been observing you two - and your father before that. But with all of that, we only had face value facts. It didn’t tell us anything about who you really were.”

“And, to be quite frank, we needed your honest reactions up until now. From what I’ve observed, your acting skills are rather hit or miss,” Ketch added.

Dean stood up, and motioned to Sam to follow him. Eileen came along, and the three of them huddled by the kitchen doorway. “What do you think?” Dean asked.

Sam looked at Eileen, then back at Dean. His jaw was tense, and he looked conflicted. “Toni Bevell seemed pretty convinced that Mick was dead,” he said finally.

“I don’t believe it,” Dean said. “How do we know it’s not just a trap? That we’ll get in there ready to blow things up and they’re just leading us to our deaths?”

Eileen looked at both of them, sighed, and then walked back over to where the Brits were waiting. She stared directly at Peter Durbin.

“What was your father’s name?” she asked.

“Edward Durbin. Edward Durbin II, to be specific. Why do you ask?” Durbin answered.

“What about the rest of your family?” she said, more demanding than before.

“My family? I never married…” He looked confused, but intrigued.

She took another step towards him. “What about siblings?”

“Really, what is this all about?” Ketch asked, irritated. “What does Durbin’s family tree have to do with anything?”

But Peter Durbin ignored Ketch. “I had a younger sister, Maura. No other siblings.”

Sam saw Eileen’s shoulders straighten. He wanted to go over and stand with her, but he knew she needed to do this herself.

“You _had_ a sister? What happened to her?”

Mick glanced at Sam, his eyebrows furrowed as if to ask, “What is she doing?” Sam shook his head and nodded back towards Eileen.

“I don’t honestly know,” Durbin admitted. “She left Kendricks - that’s the school the Men of Letters run in Britain and ran away when she was eighteen - or at least, I hope that’s what happened. I never saw her again.”

Sam saw Mick flinch, but turned his attention back to Eileen and Peter Durbin’s exchange.

“When was that?” Eileen pressed, taking another step forwards.

Durbin sat a little straighter. The hunter holding the gun on him tensed, but Dean gave a small wave of his hand to indicate it was all right.

“It was 1978. August 10, 1978. Not a date I’m likely to forget.”

“So she was born in 1960?” Eileen asked. Her voice was slightly ragged, catching in her throat.

“Yes.”

Her knees began to buckle, and Dean quietly slid in behind her with a chair which she sank down into, briefly giving him a thankful look.

“I know what happened to your sister,” she said.

 


	10. Chapter 10

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

Peter Durbin regarded Eileen with slightly detached curiosity. “How do you know anything about my sister?” he asked.

She glanced quickly over at Sam for moral support, then turned back to Durbin. “Maura Durbin married a man named Padraic Leahy in 1982. They lived in County Cork, Ireland, until they were killed by a banshee in 1986,” she told him.

Peter’s face faltered momentarily, and he lifted a hand to his eyes to dab at his eyes, which had misted over. He cleared his throat and regained his previous cool demeanor. “I have to admit I find that a little bit hard to believe, as my sister went through the same training as I did. She would have known how to deal with a banshee.”

She ignored him. “The Men of Letters’ records show that Edward Durbin II disappeared in 1941 while investigating a case in Ireland. He was never heard from again. So how could he possibly be your father?”

“I assume that you mean the American records, because I assure you my father was quite alive for many years after that. I don’t know the details of what’s in the records here, nor why they thought he was missing, or dead, or whatever the case may have been.”

Ketch cleared his throat. “Can we please get on with this? We’re wasting valuable time here. Not that I don’t appreciate a good mystery and all, but it won’t take them long to figure out that Lady Bevell has gone missing, and once that happens they will be waiting for us.”

“I’d be surprised if they haven’t already figured it out,” Mick added.

Dean walked towards them, pulling out his gun as he went. He pointed it at Ketch’s forehead. “You still haven’t given us any reason why we should believe your story,” he said.

Eileen stepped between Dean and Ketch, holding her hand out in front of the barrel of Dean’s gun. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he slowly lowered the gun. “Let’s get to the point then,” she said, and turned back to Durbin. “I know you already know my name is Eileen Leahy. My mother’s name was Maura Leahy, but her maiden name was Maura Durbin. So assuming that you’re telling the truth, you are my uncle.”

Durbin’s eyes widened for a brief second, then narrowed as he took in her appearance. “You are Maura’s daughter?” he asked. “I see a slight resemblance, yes, but… how could I never have known about you? Why didn’t she tell me?”

“She was trying to protect herself, her husband and her child from the organization,” Mick said quietly. “She didn’t have much choice but to cut all ties.”

“And then she died anyway,” Eileen said, “saving my life.” 

Durbin raised his hands in the air. “May I?” he said to the hunter holding the gun on him. Dean nodded and the hunter relaxed the grip on his gun. Durbin lowered his hands, rose to his feet, and looked directly at Eileen. “I can promise you one thing, Eileen: I would never, ever hurt Maura’s child. If what you are telling me is true, I will give my own life to protect yours. Whether that’s enough for you, or for any of the others, to believe in my sincerity, and that of my colleagues here, I don’t know. But I want this nightmare over, for us, and now especially for you. We need to get this done.”

After a quick whispered conversation between the three of them, Dean spoke to the three Brits. “All right. You can come, but you will each stay with one of us at all times. You will hand over your phones, and if you make even the slightest move to communicate with them, or anything even starts to smelly fishy, we will shoot you. Capiche?”

“Understood,” answered Durbin.

Ketch looked over at the hunter guarding him. “Am I allowed to stand up now?” he asked. 

“Fine,” Dean grunted.

“Because one thing you seem to have forgotten in all of this family togetherness is that your mother is still being held captive, and time is running out. Every moment we delay makes it even more likely that she is already dead,” Ketch pointed out, albeit in a clinical, detached manner.

Dean’s shoulders tensed; Sam swallowed hard against a wave of nausea. “Then let’s get going,” Dean said.

“We have spent years planning for this,” Ketch reminded him. “And we know that facility far better than any of you do. As far as we know, I still have security access, too, which will make things easier. Unless your plan involves more than running in and shooting everything in sight, perhaps you will take a moment to hear me out?” 

“What do you think?” Sam asked Dean and Eileen.

“Hear him out,” Eileen said. “He has a point.”

“I still don’t trust him,” Dean growled. “But fine,” he said, turning back to the Brits. “Give us the lowdown, but make it quick. Pete, go get the others and tell them we’re on the road in five.” One of the hunters who had been holding his gun on the Brits nodded and left the room.

“Shall we begin?” asked Ketch.

    *    *    *

_Men of Letters, London Chapter House, 2016_

“The time is coming.” 

Lady Bevell fought the urge to cringe at the words; she knew better than to let Dr. Hess see even a moment of weakness. “We will be ready,” she answered calmly.

She had been researching the Winchesters as part of the greater study of American hunters for over a decade. She had pages upon pages of notes, articles, surveillance photos, and reports that had been submitted to the higher ups. Graphs, charts and timelines covered an entire wall in her office.

And even after all this time she was still astonished at the level of ineptitude they routinely displayed. Certainly, they had prevented the Apocalypse, but they had also bumbled their way into starting it in the first place. In fact, most of their greatest “victories” were in fact just cleaning up messes that they themselves had started. 

At several points over the past years the Men of Letters, UK Chapter, had been poised to move in and take their rightful place overseeing a carefully selected and meticulously trained group of hunters in the United States. But Dr. Hess was determined to wait for the exactly the right moment, and now, after watching The Darkness grow in power, they could wait no longer.

Although she would never admit it to anyone Lady Antonia Bevell, Men of Letters legacy, who had never once hesitated in anything she had been asked to do, was petrified. The Darkness was something none of them had ever seen before - a being with the power to destroy everything not just on Earth, but in the entire universe. She thought of her son at home, waiting for his mother, his father already dead. She couldn’t let him down. She had to protect him. And the fact that she might not be able to because the Winchesters had let out God’s angry, vengeful sister? It was almost more than she could bear.

Almost.

Because when it came down to it, Antonia Bevell had been trained for this since the age of 11. Emotion did not enter into the equation: just cold, hard logic, facts, and planning. The Code made life much more simple when it came down to it. You knew the rules, and you knew you must not break them, and you knew what the consequences would be if you did. It was the intense training she had received in The Code that allowed her to betray her sister’s confidence without question all of those years ago. Without it, she probably would have been no better than a Winchester: sacrificing herself at every opportunity for the sake of her family, and damn the consequences to everyone else on Earth.

She may be frightened, but she would never allow anyone to know that. She would be ready when the call came, and she would do what needed to be done.

    *    *    *

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

The Americans had to admit that the British plan was brilliant. They had far more details about the way the headquarters were set up, and where the hidden offices were, and they knew how to disable some of the systems that would give them a headstart into the building without causing too much alarm inside.

The numbers inside the building had dwindled somewhat since the ill-fated night when the Alpha vamp was killed. A few more grunts had been shipped overseas to help, but in total there were less than 50 people in the building. Given that there were less than 20 hunters going in they were still at a disadvantage, but many of the Brits would never have even shot a gun in a real-life situation. Besides, it wasn’t as if the American hunters hadn’t been outnumbered before. For the Winchesters it was practically a way of life.

Five hunters had stayed behind at the bunker to guard Toni Bevell and ensure the security of the building. The rest drove towards the warehouse taking as many different routes as possible, before meeting up nearby. Under normal circumstances Dean would have had them slam through the security gates to take full advantage of a shock and awe attack, but Durbin, Ketch and Mick Davies had shown them an underground tunnel, built as a type of escape hatch, which would now serve as an entrance. Mick quickly hacked into the security cameras, playing a pre-recorded video of the previously empty tunnel, and they started inside.

    *    *    *

Mary was exhausted. She had been upright in the chair for nearly a week, sleeping only in small spurts when she simply couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore. Just barely enough sleep to keep her alive. She was taken to a small, windowless washroom under armed guard, but never left alone for even a moment. They brought her food and water - again, just enough to keep her alive, but weakened. The last time she had been taken to the bathroom her legs had been so weak she had barely been able to make the trip. The guard had made a comment about bringing in a toilet and shackling her to that, so that she didn’t need to go anywhere at all.

She wondered if Dean had gotten her message. He must have. Would he have known what she meant? Would he care? She’d been so horrible to her sons; maybe they would be glad to be rid of her.

Part of her wished that the Bletters would just get it over with and kill her. She didn’t understand why they were keeping her alive. She didn’t want to die - again - but she had made such a mess of everything. She could be back in Heaven, with John and the boys - or her memories of them, at least.

But she didn’t want to die without the opportunity to make up with Dean and Sam. She didn’t want to die with them thinking that she didn’t love them enough to stick around.

She didn’t want to die without the opportunity to kick Arthur Ketch’s ass into another dimension.

So Mary Campbell Winchester was going to have to pull it together and get the hell out of there.

    *    *    *

They had reached the end of the tunnel, and were waiting from a signal from Ketch to proceed. Since he was the only one of the rogue Brits who was supposedly still alive and known to be part of the organization, it was safest for him to scope things out before the attack proceeded.

Sam and Dean stood huddled to the side of the tunnel, just slightly away from the others. “You think she’s still alive?” Sam asked.

“Of course she is!” Dean snapped. But then he sighed. “I hope. Damn it, I don’t get it. Amara brings her back like it’s this amazing gift she’s given me, but then Mom isn’t… Mom. Not the Mom I remember. She looks at us like strangers, like the noisy college kids who are renting the house next door and you can’t find a way to get them evicted.”

Jody walked up beside them. “What the hell do you expect from the woman? The last she knew, she had a four year old and a six month old, and now she has you two big giants claiming to be her babies. Not to mention she had a whole new world to learn overnight. A lot has changed since 1983, you know. Give her a break. She’s only a resurrected human.”

Sam gave a half-smile at Jody’s attempted joke. Dean paid no attention to it. “I know, I know. But she’s my mom. And the thing is, I accepted a long time ago that she was gone, and all I was ever going to have of her was memories. And my memories are _so_ different from this woman. She looks like my mom, but she’s a stranger.”

Mick came up beside them. “Not that I don’t appreciate the importance of your mommy issues, but the rest of us are ready to go and blast our way through armed guards and take out the heads of a corrupt organization. Do you think we could put a pin in this for now?”

Embarrassed at being caught in that discussion, Dean straightened up and looked over at the crowd. “We’re going to get that signal any second now,” he said. “Make sure you keep sight of your leader, and blast anyone or anything that gets in your way.”

“We know this isn’t our usual situation. None of us likes to kill humans, but we cannot leave any survivors,” Sam told them. “They haven’t left us any choice. It’s us or them.”

“At this point,” Durbin added, “we have a group in the UK, poised to strike moments after we begin here. It has to be simultaneous. The British Men of Letters are old, and deeply entrenched. What we are doing here today is important, and I thank you all. God speed, everyone.”

Durbin looked over at Mick, who nodded. “All right everyone: let’s go.”


	11. Chapter 11

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

Five groups made their way through the facility in a matter of minutes, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. As planned, they met in the central area of the building. The last few guards were taken out easily.

It wasn’t without casualties on their side; they had started as 18, now by Sam’s count they were down to 14. He glanced over the group quickly and made sure that Eileen and Jody were still there, as were Donna, Tamara, Dudley, and all of the Brits. He didn’t have time, or energy, to figure out who else might be missing.

All of the Americans stood, unsure what to do next. A guard at each end of the group stood tense and ready for any stragglers that might show up now.

The door to the central office slid open, and a young researcher stood there, shaking like a leaf. His face was pale, and glistened with sweat. He looked as though he wanted to beg for his life, but couldn’t get the words out. “C-come in,” he finally managed. “She’s w-waiting for you…”

Ketch stepped forward, and the young man took a step backwards, his eyes wide. Tamara stepped up and held her gun on him, motioning him back into the room behind him. Gliding around the doorway, gun at the ready, Ketch stared at Dr. Hess, who had clearly been waiting for them.

“Really Arthur,” she said, sounding disgusted, “this is rather melodramatic, don’t you think? I always knew you were a bored sociopathic schoolboy who never really grew up, but this is quite unnecessary.”

Mick stepped into the room and her eyes widened momentarily, but she quickly regained her composure. “Michael, you’re looking well for a dead man,” she said dryly. “Any other surprise visitors joining us?”

Durbin stepped into the room, and this time she was unable to hide her shock. “Hello Eugenie,” he said. “Have you missed me?” 

    *    *    *

_Galway, Ireland, 1941_

The room was silent - blissfully silent. After having fought for nearly three days straight against one of the most powerful demons any of them had ever seen, they had finally managed to complete the exorcism ritual - a ritual that had been nearly impossible to find, and was far more complex than any of them had ever attempted.

Edward was exhausted, but exultant. The eight year old girl the demon had possessed was the daughter of a powerful political figure, and none of them had wanted to be faced with the prospect of killing an innocent child if they weren’t successful.

The girl had been possessed for nearly three months. The British chapter of the Men of Letters had attempted an exorcism on her when it had first happened, but without success. They had finally managed to contain the demon in a heavily warded bunker, but the girl was still trapped along with it. At that point, a call went out for help worldwide, and a group from the American chapter was sent, including Edward.

The girl was asleep now after being administered a powerful sedative: she had been hysterical when the demon first left, and understandably so. She had been trapped inside of her own body, watching her own hands do horrific things that made Edward’s stomach turn. He was thankful that the girl had survived, but still wondered what the rest of her life would be like. How would she ever get past that kind of trauma?

Blood and various other bodily fluids splattered the walls and made the floor slick beneath their feet. Augustus Sands, another of the American group, carefully picked up the girl from the table where she was lying. “I’ll take her upstairs to a bed for now,” he said. “Beatrice is there, and she can keep an eye on her.”

Edward nodded. The girl’s beautiful golden curls were matted and greasy, and her dress so covered in stains the fabric pattern beneath was barely recognizable. He didn’t know very much about children, and he was glad that Augustus and Beatrice were there. At least they were parents. Or they would be, soon. Beatrice, despite expecting her first child very soon, has insisted on coming along on the mission with her husband. They had barred her from participating in the actual exorcism, but she had been invaluable when it came to research and communications.

“You must be ready to go home,” commented Alfred Hess, one of the British contingent. “I suppose you’ll be leaving as soon as you file your report?”

“No, not yet,” Edward replied. “I’ll be visiting with my family here. I haven’t seen them since I left Ireland in ‘35. My mother is anxious to have me there for Christmas.”

“I’m sure she must be,” Hess said. “It must be terribly hard for her, your being so far away.”

“It is.” His mother had sobbed when he left home at nineteen, and he’d never quite over the guilt. She had asked him on more than one occasion if he hadn’t thought of moving back home.

Hess moved around the room, picking up some of the supplies that would need to be cleaned and stored away for future need. “You could stay,” he said, without looking up from his task.

“My Chapter is expecting me back,” Edward said regretfully. “This was only a temporary assignment.”

Alfred emptied lamb’s blood from a gold chalice into a nearby sink and rinsed it out. “Yes, temporary,” he said absently. “But there are always options, if you’re looking for them, Durbin.”

Edward thought about his mother, the woman he loved more than anyone else in the world. She hadn’t been well these past few years. It would mean the world to her if he stayed. He could work with the British chapter; he might have to live in England, but he would no doubt have work to do in Ireland on occasion, and it would be much more simple to visit…

But the Americans would view it as almost a defection; he had been given an important role at a very young age, and they expected him to return to his post.

He looked over at Alfred, who was now busily packing away spell ingredients into a shipping crate. “What do you have in mind?” he asked him.

“Well,” Alfred said, looking up at him with a sly smile. “People in our line of work do sometimes just… disappear, don’t they?”

     *    *    *

_Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day_

Dr. Hess stared at Peter Durbin as if she were a civilian seeing a ghost for the very first time. “You…” she said. She would have sounded angry, were it not for a distinct crack in her voice. “I have to admit that I would never have guessed you were behind this.”

“That was the idea,” Durbin replied.

“Truthfully, I wouldn’t have thought you were intelligent enough to fake your own death,” she said, calmer now.

“Ouch, that stings, Eugenie. But I suppose I’ll get over it once you’re Hell’s problem.”

She gave him a stare that could have cut through diamonds. “Are you going to get it over with, then?” she asked. “Or are we going to continue our little battle of wits?”

Durbin lifted his gun and aimed it directly at Hess’ forehead. “No, we’re done,” he said. She flinched visibly, but no gunshot came. “Oh, I forgot to mention. Many years ago I made a promise to someone that he could have the pleasure. And I always keep my word.”

Ketch stepped forward. He stared at his former headmistress for a moment before aiming, and cocking the hammer of his gun. “Pardon my language,” he said, “but fuck your Code.”

The shot echoed in the windowless room; it hit its target with mathematical precision.

    *    *    *

The group stood outside the building, ready to leave. They had done another thorough sweep, but found no survivors. “She wasn’t there,” Dean said miserably to Sam.

Jody put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, boys. It shouldn’t have ended this way.”

“What was the point of all of it? Amara says she’s giving me what I need most, and it turns out to be Mom. Okay, sure I guess, but why give her back if it’s all going to end like this?”

“I don’t know the answer to that, but if anyone knows how painful this is, it’s me. I got my son back, only to lose him and my husband. Sometimes life just sucks.”

“Truer words were never spoken,” Dean said.

They were all quiet as they walked back towards the vehicles. Donna had badly sprained her ankle, but refused help. “I almost hope it leaves me with a permanent limp,” she said. “I’d consider it a badge of honor.”

Near the back of the group, Ketch, Durbin and Mick walked together. Ketch was staring at his phone. “Everything has gone according to plan in London,” he said. For the first time ever, Mick heard a slight quiver in his usually unshakable tone.

“Good,” Mick replied. He knew he should feel triumphant, but he just felt exhausted.

Durbin stopped and stared back at the building. “Right spot?” he asked, without moving his gaze back to Mick or Ketch.

“Should be just about right,” Ketch replied.

“Well then. Thank you everyone,” he called out to the entire group. “It has been an honour.” Durbin pulled a remote control from his pocket, glanced quickly at his two associates on either side of him, and pressed a button.

The building imploded in a cloud of dust.

A few cheers went up from the back of the group, but most were quiet. A few exchanged hugs. Eileen squeezed Sam’s hand tightly.

“Let’s go,” Dean said after a few minutes, and everyone headed towards the vehicles again.

    *    *    *

Dean heard a rustling in the bushes as he approached the Impala. His left hand shot out to halt the group coming behind him; his right hand grabbed for his gun. Sam reached for his, and the two of them slowly and quietly walked towards the spot where they could just make out a small movement in the woods.

In one quick motion Sam pushed aside the weeds and branches and Dean pushed forwards, ready to take a shot. But he stopped suddenly as he gasped out, “Mom!”

Mary Winchester lay on the ground: weak, dirty, and covered in scratches and bruises, but alive. “Hi boys,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Mommy’s home…”

Sam and Dean rushed to her side, giving her injuries a cursory examination to be certain it would be okay to move her, and then Sam picked her up as if she weighed no more than a feather.

“How did you get away?” Dean asked, his voice husky with unshed tears. “We thought you were…”

She reached over and touched his face. “Lady Bitchface left and didn’t come back. They sent in some underling today; he was kind of an idiot,” she told him. “Not too hard to con him into removing the shackles for just long enough to give him a good solid punch to the head. Took some time, but found my way out. Don’t know how long ago that was, though… once I was out of the grounds I think I passed out for a while. Was trying to find a place to rest, and saw Baby, but couldn’t quite make it…”

“Shh Mom… it’s okay, you can tell us the rest later. We need to get you to the hospital,” Sam said as he reached the Impala. Dean opened the back door and Sam slid inside, still holding on to her.  
“No hospital,” she muttered, “just need to rest, and get cleaned up…”

Mick and Ketch broke through the crowd that had gathered around. “M-mary…” Ketch stammered.

Dean glared at him from the driver’s seat. “We’re not done, Ketch,” he growled before slamming the door and driving away.

    *    *    *

Most of the other hunters had dispersed, saying their goodbyes and moving on, as hunters do. Only Jody and Eileen returned to the bunker with Sam, Dean, Mary and the Brits.

Dean carried Mary to her room, and Jody and Eileen helped to clean and dress her wounds before getting her to bed. She was too weak even to protest that she was fine.

Sam had stayed with Durbin, Ketch and Mick, keeping an eye on them. No one spoke, leaving an awkward silence.

Walking into the library, Dean eyed Ketch. “You just left her there?” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

“I had to,” Ketch replied. “It was the only way I could keep their trust long enough for the plan to work. But whether you believe me or not, I didn’t want to, and I didn’t make that decision lightly. I care about your mother.”

“Like hell you do!” Dean snapped, enraged. “You don’t leave someone you care about in that kind of a situation!”

“I don’t think you realize how strong of a woman your mother is,” Ketch said. “You want her to be June Cleaver, but you have no idea what she’s capable of. It’s one of the things I admire most about her.”

“Don’t you dare tell me you know her better than I do! You just met her!” Enraged, Dean crossed the floor to Ketch, ready to throw a punch.

“So did you,” Ketch answered. He blocked Dean’s punch, but before either of them could throw another one Sam and Mick pulled them apart.

“Damn it, Sam, let me tear his fucking head off!” Dean swore as he pulled away from Sam’s grasp, but he turned and stalked away from Ketch, yanking out a chair and sitting down at the map table.

“If I could have done things differently, I would have. But I couldn’t. And if you can’t get past that, that’s your issue. We’ll be leaving soon, and you’ll never have to see me again,” Ketch said. “But I really do hope that you’ll take some time to get to know the amazing woman that your mother really is. You’ll be missing out if you don’t.” He turned and walked from the room.

“Where are you going?” Sam called after him.

He stopped for a moment and turned back. “You may have forgotten, but there is still the matter of Lady Bevell to deal with. Unless you plan to keep her locked in your interrogation room until the end of time.”

Dean and Sam glanced at each other and then followed him. Durbin stayed where he was, but Mick followed behind them. “What are you going to do?” Sam asked.

Ketch didn’t answer. He motioned for Mick and the Winchesters to stay back, which they did only grudgingly when Mick urged them to. He opened the entrance to the dungeon and flicked on the light. “Hello Darling,” he said as Toni’s eyes squinted to adjust to the light. “How have you been?”

Her eyes opened wide at the sound of his voice. “You,” she said, staring at him, her eyes full of disgust.

“Is that any way to talk to the man who’s come to rescue you?” he asked.

She eyed him suspiciously. “Well then untie me, won’t you?” she replied.

Ketch snickered. “It’s been a while since you’ve said that to me.”

“Oh sod off and get me out of here.”

“Not quite yet,” he said, calmly and slowly walking around behind the chair. “We need to talk, first.”

Toni rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so melodramatic. What do you want?”

“My son.”

In the hallway, Sam and Dean both turned to Mick, looking for some sort of explanation. Mick’s attention didn’t waiver, though. “Ketch has a kid?” Sam whispered to Dean. Dean shrugged and turned his attention back to the other room.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Toni said blithely. “Now, are we done?”

They heard paper rustling. “Are you sure about that?” Ketch asked.

Dean peeked around the doorway and saw Toni reading a piece of paper that Ketch seemed to have handed her. Her face went pale. “You had no right to do this,” she snapped.

“You had no right to deny that he was my child,” Ketch replied. “Did you really think I would believe that he was David’s?”

“I don’t care what you believe. DNA can be falsified. You will never have my son.”

A satisfied smile spread across Ketch’s face. “Oh my darling Toni, I already do. But don’t worry, I will take very good care of him. I’m looking forward to enjoying fatherhood, now that destroying the hierarchy of the Men of Letters’ UK chapter can be scratched off my list.”

“What?” It was almost a screech. She pulled at her restraints.

He chuckled. “All these years… it was worth it, just for that moment. They’re gone, all of them,” he told her. “But don’t worry: my little prince is quite safe. I will look after him. I’m looking forward to finally getting to embrace fatherhood.”

“You bastard!” she roared, tearing ferociously at the restraints, her eyes wild with fury.

Ketch just smiled. “Oh, I almost forgot,” he said. “You have one more visitor.”

Mick stepped into the room and she stopped thrashing immediately; her gaze flickered between Ketch and Mick. “You couldn’t even kill him right?” she said accusingly to Ketch.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Ketch answered.

“It’s more of a disappointment that you’ve been working with this former _Oliver Twist_ extra. And you,” she said, turning her attention to Mick, “I would have thought you’d have more loyalty. After all, you were nothing before my grandfather picked you up off the street, though goodness knows why he did.”

Mick stared at her: the sister who had betrayed Tori and who was fully responsible for her death. “You really don’t understand, do you?” he asked in amazement. “Or is it that you just don’t care? You led your sister to her death without a second thought. All because of a corrupted version of _loyalty_.” He practically spat the last word out. “Your _loyalty_ should have been to her.”

A slow, malicious smile spread across Toni’s face. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the one who left your illegitimate spawn in her virginal womb.”

Mick glared silently at her, refusing to rise to the bait.

“I suppose now I can understand why she was so stupid, refusing to name who was responsible: she didn’t want anyone to know she had stooped that low,” Toni continued. “It was better to die than to admit she had been sleeping with you.”

He walked slowly towards her. “Unlike you, I loved her. And I have waited a very long time to be able to say this to you.”

She scowled at him. “Well then, out with it. What do you want to say?”

He took another few steps forward, then pulled his gun from its holster. She watched his every movement; her facial expression didn’t change, but he could see the fear in her eyes, and he almost hesitated. But then Tori’s face flashed before his eyes. He lifted the gun and aimed. “This is for Tori,” he said, and he pulled the trigger.

    *    *    *

_A Few Days Later_

“Do you think we should get a cat?” Sam asked suddenly. He was sitting with Dean and Eileen in the library, eating the breakfast that Dean had made for them all.

Dean stopped eating in mid-chew. “Are you serious?” he asked. “You’re joking, right? He’s joking, right?” This last question was directed at Eileen, who just shrugged with a laugh.

“Well, I mean I’d rather get a dog, but you can’t leave a dog alone the way you can with a cat, at least for a few days at a time. I don’t know… it was just a thought…” Sam mumbled and went back to his breakfast.

Eileen laughed again. “You’re getting all domesticated,” she said, and she reached over and ruffled his hair.

“Hey!” he said, smoothing it back down.

Dean just shook his head.

Ketch, Mick and Durbin had all gone back to the UK. As Durbin had said, there was a lot to do to rebuild the Men of Letters under new leadership. Ketch seemed eager to get back and spend some time getting to know his son, although Dean noticed with some alarm that he seemed reluctant to leave Mary, and had promised to call her daily.

Footsteps came from the kitchen, and Sam and Dean turned towards the noise. Mary was walking slowly towards them.

“Hey Mom, how are you feeling?” Sam asked.

“I’m all right,” she answered, sitting down at the table with them. “Three days of sleep in an actual bed does wonders.”

Dean jumped up. “Let me go get you something to eat,” he said.

She smiled at him. “That would be great, thanks.”

A few minutes later Dean came back in carrying a plate piled high with eggs, toast, and of course, lots of bacon. “That looks so good,” she told him. He beamed at the compliment.

The four of them ate in silence for a while. “I’m going to go and have a shower,” Eileen finally said. She gave Sam a quick kiss and left, carrying her plate with her to the kitchen.

“She’s nice,” Mary said to Sam after Eileen had left. “I like her.”

“Sam does, too,” Dean said with a grin. He winked significantly at Sam.

Sam blushed, but he looked pleased. It was strange, having any girl he liked meet his mother. It was strange that he even had a mother for her to meet.

“I need to talk to you boys,” Mary said. “About everything,” she added.

“Look we don’t need to…” Sam started to say.

“Yes, we do,” Mary said, interrupting him. “I don’t even know where to start, except to say that I’m sorry. Everything - all of it - has been because of me. The lives you’ve lead… everything that you’ve been through… I didn’t want any of that for you. I wanted you boys to have the life that I didn’t get. But because of me, because of the deal that I made, you never had a chance.”

Dean leaned back in his chair. “Did I ever tell you that I saw what happened that night?” he asked her.

“What? Dean, that was in 1973, it was six years before you were ever born.”

He nodded. “It was just after I came back from Hell, after Cas brought me out of the pit. Sam and I didn’t know what any of it was about yet, we didn’t really know what we were up against, and we’d only just met Cas. He was still pretty much a dick.”

Sam chuckled.

“But he took me back to 1973. Told me I had to stop ‘it’. And I thought he meant that I had to keep you from going into Sam’s nursery that night, so I tried to tell you, but I don’t think you believed me… and then I saw all of it: your parents’ deaths, Azazel snapping Dad’s neck, and the deal you made to bring him back.”

A tear rolled down Mary’s cheek.

“And I thought I was supposed to stop that - stop you from ever making the deal. Dad would stay dead, and Sam and I would never be born, but you’d have a chance at a normal life. But I couldn’t stop it, and afterward Cas told me that I never would have been able to stop it. It was fated to happen that way. You and Dad had to get married, and you had to make us. Because we had to be Michael and Lucifer’s vessels for the Apocalypse.”

Mary flinched at the words. Sam reached out and grabbed her hand.

“But here’s the thing: we knew what they wanted from us, and we said no. And we rewrote the script whether they liked it or not. But you? You didn’t know. You did the best you could with the information you had at the time. Besides, if you hadn’t made that deal, yeah, we wouldn’t have had these lives, but Mom - we wouldn’t have had any lives. And at one point I might have said that was okay: that it was better for us never to have existed. But now? Mom, we make a difference. We kick ass. We saved the freaking world, for Chuck’s sakes. So yeah, our lives haven’t been easy, but you don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“I thought you must hate me. I hated myself for what I did to you, so why wouldn’t you hate me?” she said. “I thought if I could help the Bletters get rid of the monsters, you could have normal lives, and then maybe I could make it up to you, at least a little bit. And then I messed up again.”

Sam smiled. “Welcome to the family. We screw up as often as we do things right around here.”

Mary looked at her boys, and she gave them a small smile. For the first time, she could see her babies in these tall, handsome men without wanting to cry. She would always mourn the loss of their childhoods, and the time that she should have had with them, but finally she could look forward to getting to know them as the men they’d become.

“I love you boys,” she said to them.

They both stood up and came around the table to pull her up and into a group hug. And at that moment, Dean thought to himself that it was exactly what he needed.

 

 


End file.
